


Tradition

by nightships



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canada, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Holidays, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightships/pseuds/nightships
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma's used to taking yearly trips to the family lake house, aptly named Tradition by her sister-in-law, but what happens when she and Killian have to face the trip on their own this year? A not-quite Christmas time AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

“Please tell me both of you are joking.”

Emma’s phone was tucked in the breast pocket of her thickest flannel and set to speaker so she could carry the conversation with her sister-in-law while she made trip after trip down the stairs of her apartment building. The call had been welcome despite Mary Margaret’s timing — Emma had been carrying a full cooler of food — but her apologetic tone had made up for the interruption. Up until Emma found out what she was calling for, at least.

“Believe me, I wish we were,” Mary Margaret answered in a forlorn voice.“He’s got the rash all over his hands and face. I’ve been washing all of our sheets and towels and his work clothes. He’s starting to blister, too.”

Emma made a noise of disgust, feeling sorry for David and even sorrier for Mary Margaret, who already sounded resigned to helping him. “Where did he even find that much poison ivy?”

“Tramping through the forest on a night shift. We’re just lucky that —”

“—you got the time off already. I know,” she muttered, feeling a little selfish for bring frustrated with the both of them. She knew Mary Margaret and David lived on a tight budget. This trip was one of the few luxuries they allowed themselves out of the year, and there was only so much time a sheriff’s deputy could try to take off when he and his wife were expecting a baby in a few months. Emma sat herself down on the cooler, watching her breath cloud the morning air in front of it. “I just can’t imagine this trip without the two of you.”

“Oh, Emma, don’t worry about us. It’s not like we haven’t seen all the sights before,” she said, lingering on the edge of her next words. “Besides…you and Killian can still have fun. It won’t be a complete waste.”

There it was, the less-than-subtle hint of satisfaction that made Emma think she was not as upset as she should have been about being forced to bow out. She’d been expecting Mary Margaret to work it into the conversation at some point, but this felt a little early, even for her. Thankfully, she heard a muffled shifting noise, shortly followed by what sounded like David’s voice asking if it was here on the line.

“Emma, I just want you to —”

“Is David there?” She interrupted, trying to steer their conversation back into safe waters. “He promised he’d tell me how to get to that cheap gas station near the border. I won’t know how to find it.”

The phone line crackled a little, and then she heard a pained, pitiful _hello_.

“Feeling okay there, Deputy Nolan? You should probably leaf the foraging to the professionals.”

“Did you say _leaf_?” he asked. “Emma, that’s terrible.”

She grinned and leaned her head back against her car, the one she’d spent all morning packing. _So much for getting up before dawn to beat traffic,_ she thought to herself. “I learned from the best. Are you going to be alive when I get back?”

“I’ll do my best. Just promise not to take the car on any off-road trails without me.”

She laughed at that. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. Old Yeller can’t take a lot of extreme weather.”

“You can’t take a road trip in your car. You’re coming by to get the keys.”

She lifted her head off the wheel well and furrowed her brow. “I don’t need the Range Rover. Especially if it’s just going to be me and Killian.”

“No way, Emma. I would be a failure as a brother if I let you sleep with the driver seat leaned back like you did last year,” he said pointedly. She could practically see the paternal look on his face, the one he turned on her when he could sense a fight coming on. “The Range Rover already has the air mattress packed underneath everything else. It just needs a little…rearranging.”

“You’re going to make your pregnant wife unpack the car?”

“Of course not. You two are going to help. Killian’s already on his way.”

Emma pulled up to David and Mary Margaret’s house, a small tudor duplex that felt just as much like home as her apartment. The shutters were weathered from one too many icy winters, and there were several loose stones in the walkway that Emma had learned to avoid if she didn’t want her ankle twisted on the way in. There was a burner on the stove in the kitchen, the back left one, that only ever heated when it was turned on high. The window in the guest room — her room, David and Mary Margaret insisted, even though it was about to become a nursery — refused to open in the summertime, and whistled when the wind blew just right. Simply put, she loved the place.

David and Mary Margaret shared the duplex with a woman they collectively referred to as Granny. She was a bit of a legend where all of them were concerned — the woman could hunt as well as she could bake — and she had taken David and Mary Margaret under her wing from the moment they began to rent the top floor of her house. She stood outside with a firewood tote at her feet as Emma pulled up to the curb, with Mary Margaret practically bouncing on the other side of her.

“You’re here!” Mary Margaret’s arms came around her as much as possible, given that she was five months along. “Killian beat you to taking all the luggage inside, but it’s okay. He’s just talking to David now.” She leaned back and gave Emma a pointed look, as if she wanted to talk at more length, but thankfully Granny was still hanging around. Emma made a mental note to bring her back a souvenir.

“I hope he’s doing that from a safe distance,” Emma responded breezily. The more she acted like things were business as usual, the easier it would be to get on the road. “Are you completely sure you still want us to go? We can always book it later on.”

Mary Margaret shook her head, resolute as ever. “Completely. You two need to go. Tradition can’t be abandoned for little bumps in the road like this.” She said it with a squeeze of Emma’s shoulders,and a whiny sort of hopefulness that only Mary Margaret could make endearing. Emma couldn’t do a thing but nod.

“Well,” she told her, tipping up the corner of her mouth with a grin, “I guess I better go say goodbye, shouldn’t I?”

David was, as promised, lying prone on the couch in the living room. His face was red and blotchy where it wasn’t pink with calamine lotion, the poor guy, and he was talking to Killian with his eyes closed. Emma tried to smother her amusement as she caught a glimpse of his hands, which were wrapped up in oven mitts patterned with little birds.

“Mary Margaret’s trying to get rid of us,” she announced, spotting a head of familiar dark hair at David’s side. “Are you ready?”

Killian swiveled to look at her, his whole body twisting to put her in view. He was settled on the arm of a leather chair next to David’s sofa, arms folded against his chest, and he was still bundled up like she was. Whatever David had been saying a second ago left a smile on both of their faces, and Killian was still wearing it when he looked over. It dropped into something softer when he saw her, and Emma felt a nervous sort of twist in her gut the instant it happened. It was the kind of thing that Mary Margaret always liked to point out to her when he wasn’t around — Emma wasn’t exactly sold on the idea that it meant anything, but now she was just as aware of it as Mary Margaret.

“Everything I brought is packed in the Rover, if that’s what you’re asking. Dave was just telling me where they sell the cheapest gas this side of Toronto,” he informed her with a wink. “Do you need help with your things?”

“I only brought a couple of bags, if that’s what _you’re_ asking,” she answered back, brow raised. If he wanted to fight her hastily packed luggage in the cold at her side instead of staying in here, then she wasn’t going to stop him. They needed to get on the road anyway — there were a thousand and some miles between them and their destination. Tradition was waiting.

Emma yanked open the hatch of her Bug a few minutes later, shivering the second the cold metal touched her skin. Killian had teased her about her lack of gloves on the way out, but she refused to waste any more time by digging around in her backpack when they were about to be in a heated car anyway.

“I can’t believe you let him get covered in poison ivy,” she said, handing off her duffel bag. “What was he doing out there?”

“Had I accompanied him on that particular adventure, love, I would have certainly done my best to keep him away from the offensive plant,” Killian replied, sounding almost sad that he’d missed out. “But from what I hear, he was being very noble. He went through that thicket so the two officers training with him wouldn’t have to.”

“What a hero,” Emma deadpanned. “I’m gonna ask him for his autograph when those mitts come off.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Killian went for the rest of her luggage and stopped just before he could shove her backpack on top of the rest. He swiveled around and shook his head to himself, as if he should have known better, and stowed it in the passenger seat of the Range Rover.

“Whoa there, buddy,” she told him, following him over to the side of the car. “What makes you think you’re taking the first leg?”

“The fact I’ve got these, for one,” he told her, digging keys out of his pocket and flourishing them in front of her. “And for two, well…I got here first, didn’t I?” He stepped off to the side, pulling the passenger door open wider, and grinned wide at the woman in front of him. Emma rolled her eyes and slid onto the chilly leather upholstery, trying to act like it didn’t affect her. If she couldn’t handle the way he held a car door open, after all, she was never going to survive an entire road trip.

"It’s strange not having them here with us, isn’t it?” Killian asked, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror. Emma pulled hers from the license plate in front of her to look at him and nodded, glancing back at the space where the backseat of the Range Rover usually was. In its place was everything they’d packed, piled on top of an inflatable mattress that had seen better days. “A bit quiet.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Emma joked. Right about now was the time that their favorite local radio station cut out. David usually liked to fill the silence by pulling out his instrumental road trip playlists, but there was a distinct lack of James Newton Howard in the air around them. 

“True. We might actually stay awake for once.”

“You’d _better_ stay awake, Deputy Jones. It’s both of our lives at stake here.”

“Relax, Swan,” He shot back, grinning as he took the exit that set them northbound on the highway. “Nothing’s going to happen to you as long as I’m around.”

He sounded as though he meant to be teasing her back, but something turned in his voice, thickening his accent. He knew it made him sound more trustworthy — Emma still regretted telling him that for how often he used it on her — and it made her wonder what he and David had been talking about before she’d gone inside and joined them.

“Still,” he added lightly, breaking her from her thoughts, “I suppose it is strange. Tradition won’t be the same without Dave and Mary Margaret along for the ride.”

Emma knew he felt it more deeply than she did, and she didn’t begrudge him for it for a second. This was only his second trip with them, after all. She’d been making the journey up to their cabin on the shore of Lake Superior with them for years, to the point where she had almost all of the journey memorized. David’s secret spot for gas was one of the only places she ever forgot, so she was counting on Killian to remember it for the both of them.

The sun was high by the time they crossed over Peace Bridge, and Emma was elbow-deep in her backpack. Killian had gotten them through the stop-and-go traffic at the border by reminiscing about Mary Margaret’s puppy chow, and now she was slightly annoyed with herself for forgetting to pack a snack where she could reach it.

“How far are we from getting gas?”

“Dave said it was just a mile or two after the bridge. It’s a little off the beaten path, but it’s also a good forty cents cheaper.”

They had passed forty gas stations getting on the bridge to begin with, so Emma held him to his word. They wouldn’t reach London, Ontario for another two hours, and she refused to wait that long to eat or use a bathroom. Her backpack held no surprises for her, but in the end Killian’s promise held up. They rolled to a stop at the very last pump and she jumped out of her seat before he could even pull the keys out of the ignition, earning a look from him that she easily rebuffed.

“If I hear a single word of judgment come out of your mouth, I’m not sharing my food.”

Killian’s hands rose in surrender, another grin growing on his face. “I was only going to ask for a bottle of water, Swan. Nothing else.”

She eyed him suspiciously, ignoring the fact that he answering smile rendered the expression harmless. “Nothing else? Not even hot chocolate?”

He shook his head. “I know the rules. Just water.”

Emma lingered as long as she dared in the warmth of the gas station convenience store, but eventually it was time to brave the cold again. She jogged back to the car and hopped into her seat, tossing his bottle of water to him and dropping her bag of trail mix in favor of pressing her hands to the air vents.

“Remind me to find my gloves before I fall asleep tonight. It is too damn cold outside for this,” she muttered, fanning her fingers across the dashboard.

“You could have asked for mine.”

“And you would have just handed them over?”

“Perhaps I would have.”

It was sentences like those, the ones he always said with a little too much sincerity and a little too softly, that echoed around in her head for the rest of the ride to the overnight campground. It wasn’t an awkward ride in the slightest; they saw each other too often back in Boston to be able to fill the remaining hours with conversation, and it wasn’t as though either of them were big talkers anyway. Emma ate her snack in silence and stared out at the dark, knowing if she lowered the window she would smell crisp pine and cold earth rushing past them. It was the kind of earthy scent she couldn’t find back in the city, and it was one of her favorite things about this trip. Tradition was nice, but she almost liked the ride more than the destination ahead of them.

She did, however, have something to say once they were within the campground.

“Why aren’t we going into Campground C?”

“Because A is closer to London.”

“Yeah, but we still have to leave from the main road. We can’t drive through the woods. It doesn’t count.”

He paused, and then he cut his eyes over to her. “Maybe I wanted to be closer to the water.”

“It’s going to be colder near the water, Killian.”

“Aye, I know, it’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

“The waning gibbous is out tonight.”

“Oh, well in that case,” Emma scoffed, turning her eyes back to the road to try to keep from smiling. Killian had the phases of the moon memorized, and he never failed to point out meteorological phenomenons when they came across one. She still remembered the argument he and David had over the Dreamworks logo.

“Laugh all you want, Swan, because I see a spot close to the water.“

Unpacking for the night was easier than Emma expected it to be, despite not having Mary Margaret and David there to help — or perhaps because of it. While he lifted their bags off of the air mattress, she dug the extension cord out from in between her cooler and the spare tire. It inflated as slow as she remembered, but at least the cab of the car was still warm when he came back to help her stretch the fitted sheet over it.

"I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep on this with you tonight.”

Emma looked up at him, startled by the sudden seriousness in his voice. The fitted sheet slipped right off the corner she’d been fighting with. “Why not?”

He waggled his eyebrows at her, his smile wide and toothy. “This is where David and Mary Margaret usually sleep. Who knows what it’s been used for?”

“If you don’t want to sleep on perfectly clean sheets, the front seats are open.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,“ Emma answered loftily, reached over and tugged his corner up in response, making it so he’d have to struggle with it all over again. It was childish, but so was his comment. Or at least…he wanted it to be. Emma knew something else was hiding in the way he ducked his eyes down to focus on what his hands were doing, how he pointed out imaginary drool marks David left behind on the layers of blankets they continued to set down. It didn’t take long to figure him out, though — he was working hard to diffuse the tension between them before it even appeared. Killian was always one step ahead of her like that, knowing what she felt before she did. She’d never let herself think about it long enough to be a problem, but then she’d never been alone with him in close quarters on a road trip through Canada. 

Maybe she should have thought this through.

Emma rolled an extra layer of woolen socks over her feet as he brushed his teeth outside, trying to remember what side of the bed he slept on. She was almost sure he slept on the left, but she couldn’t rule out the possibility that he would sprawl across the entire thing when he got back and left her to fend for herself. She slipped under her blanket, a heavy knitted number that Mary Margaret had given her for Christmas, and edged herself over on the right half of the mattress, leaning against the trunk wall until she felt the chilly air that meant he’d joined her again. She’d expected him to have some kind of remark ready, but he just shoved himself right into the space next to her and lifted a corner of her blanket, setting his cold shin against hers.

"I cleared off the top of the car,” he told her, heading off the protest that was about to fall from her lips. “We’ve a perfect view of the moon.”

Emma shut her mouth and looked up, surprised to find it smack-dab in the middle of the sunroof. “Wow,” she whispered, forgetting the press of cold denim on her warm leggings. “That looks….exactly like it did an hour ago when we were driving.”

Killian nudged her shoulder, but she heard a chuckle escape him. “That it may, but it’s not the shape  we’re appreciating. Do you see the way it’s lit from the bottom, rather than from the side?”

She obliged him for a minute, which turned into several. Emma listened to him talk about the moon’s seasonal shifts for a little while, but eventually her eyelids grew heavy. He got the hint after she started to slump against his arm and nudged her again, this time much more gently than before.

“C'mon, Swan. Long day tomorrow.”

Emma only grumbled and slid down the mattress until her feet were pushed against the other wall of the trunk space. She felt him shift down and join her after that and resisted the urge to look back at him over her shoulder. The feeling of having someone only inches away from her was completely foreign, and it had her eyes open again, resisting the urge to look over at him.

“Stop thinking so much,” he whispered, sounding half-asleep himself. “Just sleep.” 

Easy for him to say, she thought to herself, just before her eyes drifted shut.


	2. Chapter 2

****Emma woke up earlier than Killian did. It was par for the course for her to be the first one, to pull herself out from under the warmth her blankets offered and exchange it for refreshing cold before anyone else. She rolled closer to the window, socked toes finding the chilled space where the door met the edge of the mattress, and tugged her blanket up over her shoulders as she peeked out at the campground.

He’d parked them facing the reservoir, which was quickly turning into molten gold as the sun rose and painted the water with light. It was blinding to look at, but Emma felt warmer with morning falling on her. Emma stared out at the firs and red cedars lining the edge of the man-made shoreline while her eyes adjusted, idly wondering whether the weather report had changed since they left. Icy temperatures were one thing, but icy roads were another.

They’d been snowed in last year, the four of them. David and Killian had already gone out and collected enough firewood to last them a week, but the first fourteen hours of their Tradition weekend did not include electricity. 

She’d gotten to know Killian in the arguments over who could carry more firewood between him and David, and the debates about whether a marshmallow was better toasted or burnt by the fire, rather than watching reruns of holiday movies on the family channel. Having never been much for the holidays to begin with, it was a welcome change of pace.

(And if Mary Margaret started to throw her some very pointed looks when she thought the men weren’t looking after that, well, Emma just got good at ignoring them.)

Emma glanced behind her to see Killian already awake and looking at her, his greener than usual thanks to the light. The time for teasing comments about staring came and went, and she chalked it up to the effort it took to pull her back into the present.

“Feel like helping me pack everything back on top of the car?” 

Killian scoffed, as if she’d never suggested anything more ridiculous in her life. “It was your idea to take everything down so we could see the moon, you know.”

It’d been his idea to park near the water and suffer the chill of the breeze, too, but she left that out of her argument as he pulled himself up from under his blankets. She was sure it would be better to pull on her coat and gloves and pack the car than it would be to linger on him and the way sleep had mussed his hair, the way he was running his fingers through it and over his face to wake himself up.

She had always liked the fresh morning air.

Emma made quick work of the luggage on the gravel at her feet. Every step she took was crisp and satisfying under her boots, and every breath came in a cloud, motivating her to finish before Killian could see how she was doing it. She was doing her best to recreate his neat, methodical style of packing, but she just didn’t have the knack for it that he did.

“I don’t mean to be ungrateful, lass, but you look like you could use some help.”

The sudden closeness of his voice in the otherwise quiet morning was almost jarring. Emma looked down from her perch on the step rail and found him standing and admiring her handiwork. Admiring was the wrong word, Emma realized, as she saw the scrutiny in his eyes.

“Maybe more than a little,” she agreed guiltily, lifting her hands away from the luggage strap she was fighting to lock.

He was a good sport about it, jumping up to stand next to her and holding the bags down. Emma pulled at the slack in the strap and tried not to let the flashes of light reflecting off his watch blind her. She’d seen it up close a few times before; it showed the day of the week as well as the phases of the moon, and it featured a tiny, inlaid pegasus instead of a 12. He’d mentioned it was an heirloom when she last asked, and ever since she had wondered about it. Now wasn’t the time to ask, though, especially when she saw where the hands were pointing.

Emma slid her eyes toward him. “Is there time for Tim Horton’s?”

He let up on the bags a little, satisfied when they strained tight and firm against their straps. “There’s always time for Tim Horton’s, Swan. Twenty minutes is more than enough time to find something close by.”

“Twenty minutes not counting checkout time?” She challenged.

“Fair point.”

True to his word, Killian navigated her out of the camp and toward the nearest coffee shop. They had to wait twelve minutes in the drive-through line, and by that point Emma was so enticed by the smell of fresh bagel sandwiches she ordered them breakfast along with drinks. His eyebrow lifted as she passed the bag of hot food over to him, but Emma wasn’t having it.

“Don’t look so cocky. Black coffee and an english muffin are not hard to remember.”

“They aren’t…but what if I had wanted something else?”

“You didn’t,” she said knowingly. He would have stopped her if he did, and he hadn’t said a word as they waited in the line of cars.

“But what if I had?”  A slow, almost curious expression grew over his face as he spoke, like he was searching for the answer in her eyes rather than waiting for her reply.

“Then you could learn to live with disappointment. It’s nine hours to Green Bay, and it’s not nearly as pretty as yesterday’s drive.”

“That’s a matter of perspective, Swan,” he grinned, taking a bite of his sandwich. “Take a left turn out of here.”

He busied himself with sending Mary Margaret an update as they drove along, and Emma felt grateful for his superior memory. She felt grateful for having someone at her side to begin with, honestly; he was the whole reason Tradition was still happening this year. Mary Margaret wasn’t about to leave David at home on his own, and she wasn’t about to drive so far alone. She’d had made enough trips that way for a lifetime.

* * *

Hours later, they had crossed back over the U.S. border, and Emma was staring worriedly at the horizon. It was as sunny in Michigan as it had been in Ontario, but thick snow clouds were moving in from the west as quickly as they were driving from the east. “Did you say you checked the weather last night?”

“No,” he told her, already digging out his phone to pull something up, “but I can.” She waited patiently for him to give her an update, and the longer the silence grew between them the more worried she got. “Killian? Is it loading.”

“Oh, it loaded. They’re calling for snow and freezing rain by the hour, though, so I’m trying to find us a good rate on a motel for the night.”

Emma slumped a little in her seat, foot sliding a bit off the gas pedal. It was just her luck that they’d get delayed while she was behind the wheel, and she was starting to wonder whether David’s poison ivy was just the first of many signs they shouldn’t be taking this trip. Half of her wanted to pull over now, before they could miss another exit toward civilization.

“Should I—”

“Not yet. We can put ourselves on the other side of this if we hang on a few more exits…ah, if that’s all right with you, that is,” he added hastily, seeming to realize what they were in for. It was a lucky thing he had texted Mary Margaret earlier, when they were both blissfuly unaware of what they were driving toward. 

Emma shrugged, trying to convey a calm she was no longer feeling. “Better than sleeping in the car.”

Killian smiled and flicked his eyes back to his screen. “Then merge left. We’ve another six exits to go.”

Emma dropped her foot down on the gas pedal and pulled them in front of the truck they’d been coasting behind, watching the horizon. It was like high tide coming in; every mile they drove seemed to push them further under a fast-moving cloak of grey sky and uneasy air. A cloud of birds flickered in the last patch of sunlight left on the road, and she glanced over to him again. 

In a second, she went from slightly apprehensive to highly suspicious. The grin hadn’t left his face, and he looked like he was actually trying to rein it in.

“You’re excited about this, aren’t you?” He was, despite all protests to the contrary, and the wariness turned to annoyance bordering on anger. There was no denying the spark in his eyes, even after it fell away with the realization of her mood. She didn’t have time to read further into it before it was gone. “You’re okay with us getting snowed in before we even hit get to Milwaukee.”

“We’re not going to get snowed in, love. I told you I was putting us on the other side of this thunderstorm.”

“It’s a _thunderstorm_ now? And you just wanted to drive through it?”

He wasn’t picking up on her tone yet, she could tell. Emma’s eyes widened as he nodded, oblivious to her mood when his own was still high. “It’s not all that terrible. They’re actually quite beautiful when they get fierce.”

Emma stomped down on the gas and tore down the exit they’d been about to pass, angrily registering the sound that meant his GPS was recalculating. She heard a horn honk behind her, but only dimly over the sound of blood pumping in her ears. She refused to look at him until they reached a stoplight, and even then it was only to ask where she should turn.

“Left up here. It’s just four blocks north,” he said in confusion. Emma didn’t bother answering the question in his tone; the sky was darkening, and the first few raindrops had skittered across the windshield by the time she pulled into the parking lot of the aptly named Cold Spring Inn.

She shoved the gear in park, registering a little guilt at the strain she was putting on David’s Range Rover, but not enough to keep her from yanking the keys from the ignition with equal force. Killian’s hand rose up, but was out of the car and slamming her door before his wrist crossed the center console. Backpack in hand, Emma dodged the icy mix falling from the sky and went for the front door, trying and failing to pull her wallet from the front pocket before her knees slammed into the front desk.

“Welcome to the Cold Spring Inn. Can I help you?” A middle-aged man with red, receding hair greeted her pleasantly from the other side of the desk. He looked like he was a breath away from mentioning the weather, but seemed to think better of it after she nodded instead of replying.

Emma folded a stack of bills in her hand, trying to ignore the footsteps and sound of rolling luggage behind her. “I’d like a single, if you’ve got one.”

“Unfortunately, our singles are booked for the evening,” he answered, a hint of confusion on his face. The solid presence at her right shoulder made it clear why that was. “I could certainly offer you what we have left…” he paused, scrolling over his monitor. “How about a room with a queen-sized bed and a garden view.”

“How much is that?”

“A hundred and twenty per night. I’d be happy to waive the check-in fee for you, since it’s getting so bad out there.”

Even without additional charges, Emma couldn’t afford the room. She’d packed enough money to pay for gas and one grocery trip, just in case, and she couldn’t spend half of it here. She took a steadying breath before turning her eyes back up to the man, hoping like hell there weren’t tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

“That’s fine. Thank you anyway.” She turned for the door, already trying to think of whether they’d passed another place on their way here. They were right off the interstate; it couldn’t be that difficult to find another place with open rooms she could actually afford.

Emma shivered once she was back out on the sidewalk, almost ready to laugh at the ridiculous scenario she’d gotten herself into. She couldn’t wait to tell Mary Margaret what was going on, how she probably should have One pathetic, angry chuckle escaped her between the door to the motel and the Rover, and then that persistent footfall was behind her again.

“We need to find another place. There has to be one nearby.”

“No we don’t.”

“Excuse me?” She whirled on him again, incensed to find he’d been reaching out for her again.

“Emma, just calm down. We can split a room tonight, and stop at an ATM tomorrow after the roads clear. It’s perfectly safe.”

She stared at him until the icy rain started coming down more steadily, until she was hyper-aware of how they looked standing out in the weather she’d wanted so desperately to avoid. The adrenaline of her anger was freezing over at the look in his eyes, too, much as she wanted to hold onto it. “Fine,” she muttered, all her fight leaving her in one cloudy exhale.

The front desk attendant looked happy, if surprised, to see them back again. He offered to send another staff member down with their luggage and Emma refused before he even finished his sentence, more and more desperate by the minute to be alone. If nothing else, she could lock herself in the bathroom for a couple of hours until she felt like she could handle being in the same room with Killian again.

He handed them a single room key at the door and bid them goodnight, and she tensed herself for an explosion to follow. Once their bags crossed the threshold, one after the other in a space that felt comically narrow for the distance between them, Killian was going to demand she explain herself.

But he didn’t. He left the room once his bags were tucked into the closet across from the bed, pressing the key card onto the countertop without another word. She had no idea what he was doing, and for a few wild seconds she imagined him going to sleep out in the car in the middle of a storm just to prove his annoyance with her. The storm picked up quickly, slamming against their garden view a little too heavily to be just rain. A minute later the power was flickering, and despite the swirl of unease churning in her chest, she hoped he was all right.

She should have listened to herself about this trip. David and Mary Margaret hadn’t forced her to come all this way, even if the poison ivy had never happened. She shouldn’t have expected to drive halfway to Canada with Killian and survive the trip unscathed, considering her track record.

A small voice, one that sounded remarkably like her eleven-year-old self, reminded her that this was she should have expected. She’d ignored it to make her sister-in-law feel like there were still some sacred things in the world, and now she was paying the price.

Emma swept the pad of her thumb across her phone, which told her the weather was clear back home. Of course it would be. She was traveling thousands of miles away from the two people who made sure she had a family to go to for the holidays, who always reminded her when she needed to ease up on herself, who would have known that she _didn’t like storms_. Why wouldn’t it be better there? She threw her phone into the open mouth of her backpack before it could update to their current location and stared at the floor, trying not to think of all the ways she could have avoided this.

A knock at the door managed to startle her, just when she finally pulled herself out of her thoughts to turn down the sheets of the bed. Emma had accepted the fact that she’d be on her own, which was just as well, seeing as she planned on spending most of the night regretting the reason for it. She opened the door, expecting nothing but the front desk attendant telling her about the electricity, and found Killian with an armful of vending machine snacks in his arms instead.

“Apparently there’s no room service here,” he smiled weakly. “Mind if I come in?”

“You paid for half the room.”

“I know. But it felt right to ask.”

Emma felt her guard rise — she’d expected a confrontation, not whatever this was. She let him aside and stayed near the door as he dumped several small snack bags on the bed, trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between what he’d just said and what she wanted to say back to him.

“They were out of Funyuns on our floor, but I had a feeling I’d find some if I just kept wandering around,” he continued, scratching the skin behind his ear. “I remembered you eating them last year, and I thought something familiar might help.”

She could hear _sorry_ in every word, even in the way he punctuated his pauses, and Emma wrapped her arms around herself as she took a half-step back into the room.

“I went camping as a kid,” she blurted out suddenly, surprised at the sound of her own voice. His rustling through the bags immediately stopped. “The foster family I was living with took me on this big trip to New Hampshire.”

Killian’s eyes rose to hers, the junk food on the bed forgotten, but hers were glued to the floor. The last time she told this story was the first year she’d joined Mary Margaret and David on this trip, and it hadn’t been easy to look at them, either.

"We were supposed to be spending the night in the mountains. It was their version of Tradition, the whole family-bonding thing. It sounds so stupid saying it now, but I guess I thought bringing me was some kind of test to see if I really fit in with them. I thought if I made it through the trip they’d want to adopt me.”

His eyes were burning holes in her now. Emma worked to speak casually, but it was too quiet in their room to miss the occasional waver in her voice.

“This snowstorm came up, and there was still a long way to go before they got to the campsite. Their kids noticed how freaked out I looked, and they kept bugging their dad about it until he turned around to tell me to suck it up. They’d driven through a hell of a lot worse with no complaints from anyone before they took me in. The car hit the shoulder while he was distracted, we went into a ditch, and they had to cut the trip short to get towed home. I think you can guess how they felt about adopting me.”

“Emma, will you look at me?” She dragged her eyes up and saw empathy in his expression. It was far less painful than she was expecting it to be.

“I’m sorry I got angry with you. I should have explained before,” she muttered, noticing how damp his hair was. He had to be cold.

Killian shook his head, dismissing her as gently as he could. “It’s all right. I just want to say something to you.” He waited a moment to see if she’d protest. When she didn’t, he took another step, cutting off her view of the window outside. “I know this can’t carry the same weight as it would if it came from Dave or Mary Margaret, but I like to think I know you fairly well. I also know that wounds made when we are young tend to linger,” he told her, ignoring another flicker of darkness from the overhead light. “So please, don’t apologize to me over something terrible that happened to you in the past. I shouldn’t have assumed you would share my strange penchant for storms,” he added, finally drawing a half-smile from her when he said it. He looked proud when it happened, and Emma rolled her eyes in a way that said all was forgiven. 

The power went out for good as they changed into drier, warmer clothes, but it was still much warmer than it would have been in the back of the Rover. Every pillow on the bed was piled behind their backs and a small mountain of snacks sat at their feet. With every Cheeto he traded for one of her Funyuns, the howling wind outside felt less intense. With every work story about David he exchanged for one from their time growing up, the storm seemed to quiet down.

“We can still go back to Boston at any point, if you needed to. No questions asked,” Killian offered later, when Emma’s eyes were droopy and the taste of fried onion had been brushed out of her mouth. She’d expected a real bed to feel strange after the cramped space of the car, but she just felt warm.

“We should keep going,” she said after she realized he was asking. “It’s Tradition.”

She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but Emma thought she heard a smile in his voice. “All right, Swan. Do you want me to drive until Green Bay? It’s still technically my leg of the trip. I can put the snow chains on.”

“We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” she muttered, unwilling to think about it now. He seemed to accept that answer without comment, so she let her eyes slip shut and fell asleep to the ever-steady snow draping itself over the city outside.


	3. Chapter 3

Emma woke up to the kind of silence that only ever followed snow. It was a heavy sort of quiet like the blankets around her waist, which felt more substantial than they had when she’d fallen asleep the night before. Of all the ways to wake up, she thought drowsily, this wasn’t terrible.

The moment fell away once Emma heard Killian yawn behind her, much closer than expected. The feeling of his fingers skimming the edge of her wrist where it was exposed by the blanket immediately followed, and she came to the sudden understanding that his forearm was the heavy weight resting on her side. Sure enough, the golden hands of his watch reflected the overhead light into her eyes when she looked down at the blankets covering her.

A deep ache filled her chest at the sight of it, a painful bloom somewhere just below her collarbone despite — or perhaps because of — the sheer comfort it brought. He probably had no idea that he had turned in his sleep toward her. He probably didn’t give it a second thought that most of this trip would entail nights spent lying right next to her, either. Emma, on the other hand, had listened to Mary Margaret talk about the possibility of something like this simply _happening_ to them before they even arrived at their destination.

The trouble, Emma always insisted, was that things like this never just _happened_. People’s lives could change over the course of time, but a week-long road trip was not enough of it. Either feelings existed, or they didn’t. Either people acted on them, or they didn’t. A year had come and gone since Emma first met Killian, and despite every single pointed look from her brother and every muttered encouragement from his wife, she had never seen the evidence through her own eyes. She knew part of that was the careful game of distance she always found herself playing whenever he was around, but that was the point, wasn’t it? She was the only one playing.

_Move, Emma._

She spent several seconds trying to figure out a way to pull herself from his arms before she sighed and eased her hips to the edge of the bed in one tense motion. His arm fell away down the blankets,  and then she was free to stand up and greet the day. It should have felt like victory when he didn’t immediately stir, but Emma just felt cold.

She shuffled toward the switch on the wall and turned their lamp off. The reflection of the porch light on the snow cast a bright enough glow on its own; six inches of snow blanketed everything in sight, including the Range Rover. It was perfect, except for a few trails left by the squirrels and the birds, and she stood there for a while as the sun began to set the sky on fire.

By the time the water shut off again, Emma was packed and ready, her long hair wound in a plait that fell past her shoulder blades. She made herself busy with lacing her boots while he changed and pretended to only notice him once she heard the zipper on his bag close. He looked more awake than he probably felt, but more than anything she noticed a difference in his smile. It was like he knew exactly what she’d been thinking about from the moment he woke up. Near from the day she met him, he’d always had a strange knack for being able to guess her thoughts. Maybe this was just another one of those moments — or maybe it was just one of the side-effects of being close to him.

“Did you send a picture back to Mary Margaret yet?“

“I don’t think they’re even awake,” she remarked, wondering just how worried they would be if she sent them a picture of the Range Rover covered in last night’s snowfall. The choice to not contact them last night during the storm had been a little less than accidental.

“That’s true. I forgot about the time change,” he muttered, glancing down at his watch for a moment. She watched his eyes change in a way they usually didn’t when he checked the time, but in a second the expression was gone and replaced with another grin. “I don’t remember you waking this early either, Swan. Was I snoring that badly?”

“You don’t snore.”

“I know. I just wanted you to feel better about the fact that you do.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Aye. But you enjoy it.”

Emma rolled her eyes and huffed as she shouldered her bag, dismissing the topic before he could keep it up. She was not treading any closer to the topic of their sleeping arrangement last night. He was too good at reading the path her train of thought took, and it was hard enough to pass by him without remembering the way his fingers had traced the outside of her palm. Feeling the ghost of it throughout most of the morning was more than enough for her to try and handle.

* * *

 

From what she could tell, their luck with the weather had quite literally changed overnight. As thick as the snow had been, it had fallen warm and powdery, making it miraculously easy to scrape off the front windshield and side mirrors. Driving on the freshly scraped main streets wasn’t as easy — she always swore the plows actually made it worse by packing down all of the snow and slicking it up — but somehow they made it back onto the interstate without having to get out and push.

And, terrified as she’d been of driving through the snow the night before, she had to admit it was one of the most beautiful views she’d ever seen. Small town after small town flew by once they made their way past Milwaukee, each one blanketed in less snow than the last. They weren’t two hours into the day before patches of grass started appearing again and the radio started fizzling into static.

“Tell me how you and David met.”

Emma threw the half-question out into the air without putting much thought into it; her foster brother had mentioned Killian long before she ever had the chance to meet him, but somehow the story of their introduction was always forgotten.

Except now, in the space between her request and his answer, she was starting to wonder if that was such a coincidence.

“That’s not the most flattering story,” he admitted, softer than she was expecting. She thought he’d stop there, but he let out a little sigh and shifted so he was facing her more directly. “But I’ll tell you, if you’d like.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Emma paused a moment, trying to figure out what he was doing. If he wanted to avoid the conversation, then he would have found a way around it by now. “All right,” she finally said, turning the radio down until the music was barely more than a whisper. “Tell me.”

“David and I met when I was transferred to his department. His unit was short-handed at the time, and my latest case had just closed.” he explained. “He runs quite a tight ship, as I’m sure you are aware. I took it upon myself to take every opportunity to rile him up that I could.”

Emma knew exactly what he was talking about. Her brother was nowhere near obsessive, but he always made a plan and followed through on it, sometimes to a fault. She always chalked it up to him playing the protective older sibling, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise to hear it carried over into work.

“He’ll deny it now, but we near hated each other right off the bat. I’ve always had trouble dealing with authority, and his way of dealing with that was trying to control me further. He made it his job to oversee every step I took on our case, and it damn near drove the both of us insane — not for a lack of instigation on my part, of course,” he added, a bit of a hollow grin on his lips. “If it hadn’t been for a single case we worked on together, I think we’d still be at each other’s throats.”

“Which case was it?” Emma asked, trying to remember any stand-out instances of David complaining about work. As many times as she found him dazed and weary on the couch in the living room, she’d never heard him mention problems with coworkers. For David, it was always about the task at hand.

Killian’s smile fell, subtle and yet perfectly clear in her peripheral vision. “I’m not sure how much he would have told you, since it was so widely televised — there was a pair of child traffickers.”

“Greg and Tamara,” Emma interrupted in a low voice, her own expression darkening. He was right in guessing she didn’t know much, but what she did was enough to set anyone into a rage. The couple had paced up and down New England, kidnapping young boys and using them to pass drugs along the coast, along with who knows what else. David hadn’t told her much after they caught the people responsible, and she was fine with not knowing.

“We both spent weeks combing through evidence and tracking them down. I’m still not sure if it was the godawful station coffee or the insomnia addling our brains, but that was the first time I saw how much he cared about what was happening around him. Most of us numb and isolate ourselves to get through our work,” he admitted quietly. “I reconsidered after the dust settled.”

Emma was quiet for a while, her mind swimming with everything his story had dragged up. Then, because she couldn’t think of anything adequate enough to soothe the memories, she glanced over at him with a small, lopsided smile.

“I was expecting something about David punching you for flirting with Mary Margaret and giving you that scar on your cheek.”

As always, he was ready for her. “Emma, love, have you ever seen me flirt with another woman?”

“I’ve seen you charm bartenders into free refills.”

“Yes, but I seem to remember you batting your eyes at our waiter for another basket of onion rings at the very same pub,” he argued, cocking his head in her direction.

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

He had a point, Emma realized slowly. From the moment she’d met him until now, she had yet to see him put his energy into getting to know someone. She had yet to overhear conversations featuring unfamiliar names, to shake hands with new guests over family dinner, to let herself consider the possibility of five passengers in the car instead of four on the way up to Thunder Bay. Emma had gotten used to him as he was, and the thought of almost any alternative was unthinkable.

That was exactly her problem. _Almost_ left room for exactly one possibility, and it was too easy for her to imagine.

“All right,” she ceded, trying to draw the conversation back to a place where she felt safe giving him honest answers. “Then where’d the scar come from?”

“That’s two questions, Swan. Is it not my turn to ask you something?”

“I don’t remember agreeing to rules like that.”

“Aye, you didn’t, but that isn’t going to stop me to asking.”

He had trouble in his eyes, the kind that let her know he was planning on being relentless. She wished it didn’t look so enticing coming from him.

“What is it you want to know?”

Killian made a noise of amusement, which didn’t ease her in the slightest. “This isn’t an interrogation, love. You don’t have to be so defensive.”

“I’m not being —” Emma paused before she could finish her sentence, glowering at the road in front of her. “Fine. Okay. But then you answer my question afterwards.”

He held a hand in the air. “On my honor.” To Emma’s surprise, he immediately reached for her, gently tugging free the wrist that rested farthest from him on top of the wheel. It wasn’t the way that her arm pressed across her body that made her startle, though. It was the way his fingers held the weight of her palm, and the way his thumb skimmed over the small tattoo on her wrist. Had his touch been any gentler, she wouldn’t have felt it at all.

“I want to know where you got this.”

It was a simple forget-me-not, one that had adorned her wrist for as long as she’d known David. Ruth hadn’t exactly approved of a tattoo as an adoption present, but even she had admitted it suited Emma after the swelling went down on her skin.

“Believe it or not, David has a friend in the city. He was never going to use his friend discount, so he gave it to me —” she paused there, realizing she had already fulfilled his question. He’d even given her an easy start on purpose, asking the where instead of the why, but the unspoken invitation to keep going was sitting right in front of her.

She took it.

“I used to draw it on my wrist all the time. I used to do it when I was feeling down about being on my own. It’s supposed to stand for steadfastness.”

She had to work not to turn her eyes to him at that point, because his thumb traced the petals again. She took a deep breath and pressed on, trying to focus her eyes on the road in front of her.

“So when I finally got my family, I didn’t have to keep drawing it anymore. But then my wrist looked really weird without anything on it, so…a tattoo.” She finished with a little smile, pressing her fingernails into her palm and fanning them out again.

“Please say something. You’re never this quiet.”

He opened his mouth to reply but seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say, pulling his hand away to rest at his side instead. “I got the scar when I was very young. Nine years old was a little too early to learn to shave.”

“But you didn’t let that stop you, apparently.”

“Not at all. I’d watched my brother Liam doing it and that was all the motivation I needed to try it myself.”

Emma had never had reason to picture him young, but she spent the next several miles drawing the mental image in her mind. His description of Liam and their adventures together drew her own memories of David to mind, even though she and David were much closer in age. Emma had only heard about Liam a few times before, and always in past tense. It didn’t take much to connect the scattering of happy memories into a bigger picture of the man Killian had lost.

They continued trading stories as they day grew long and the winter sun stretched higher, sticking to an unspoken agreement to tell more lighthearted stories than those they’d started with. Cities passed hour by hour in the rearview until the gas was empty again, but even then she rolled down the driver’s side window so she could listen to him talk about the merits of the metric system versus America’s standard. By the time Duluth was behind them, he’d convinced her to let him switch her phone to display both military time and Celsius.

Stout, scrubby pines and their taller neighbors lined both sides of the road now, and Emma could feel the wind pushing Killian’s side of the car every time their route crossed over a river. The sun, which had been chasing them all day, had fallen back behind the trees long since they crossed into the Superior National Forest. Emma hadn’t officially labeled it a competition, but she was longing for the chance to stretch her legs on frost-covered grass instead of gas station concrete. Her phone had buzzed no less than four times in her pocket, too, letting her know Mary Margaret was just as anxious for them to arrive as she was. Every road sign taunted her with the miles left to go — especially when the speed limit reduced in a residential zone — but then, all at once, things began to look familiar. First, it was the way the road widened in front of them, signaling the end of the national forests’ easternmost boundary. Then, it was Grand Portage Bay and its national monument, which would have still been a pit stop had David been in the car, and Wauswaugoning Bay minutes afterward. Canada welcomed them for the second time in three days.

A short ten minutes after crossing the border, just in time for night to truly fall, Emma turned off the interstate highway down a dusky, frost-bitten stretch of dirt. The smell of frozen wood spread through the air even with their windows closed, along with smoke from someone’s chimney. This time, the slower speed didn’t hinder a thing; she took in every untouched pile of half-melted snow and weathered fence post as she climbed the driveway.

It had been darker the last time they came, the first time Killian traveled with them. He hadn’t been able to see the sun reflected in the picture windows that looked out over the lake, or the way the ice formed over the beach and climbed over the unsuspecting reeds near the water’s edge. She glanced at him as she parked by the front steps, watching him take it in in a way she hadn’t the year before.

Tradition looked nothing short of magnificent, and he looked exactly as awed as she’d felt the first time David and Mary Margaret invited her to come. Even with just the light from the interior shining down on him, she could feel it coming from him, and she would have been lying if she said it wasn’t in the least infectious. For a moment, it felt like this was her first time seeing everything, too.

“C’mon,” she told him with a grin, pulling the key out of the ignition and taking hold of the one that opened the front door instead. “It looks even better when the fireplace’s turned on.”

It took three trips to haul everything into the foyer. Emma stubbornly left her gloves off, as if that would make things go more quickly, but in the end she found herself fumbling with the matches because of it. She knelt in front of the stone inlay of the hearth and hissed victoriously the second a spark lit.

“Killian! It’s lit. Where is the wood?”

“Hold your horses, Swan,” he grunted, sloughing an armful of wood onto the stone in front of her. “Everything on top of the pile was sopping wet.”

She waved off his pointed complaint and shoved a few thick logs into place, watching to make sure her starter didn’t die out. When it didn’t, she looked over at him gleefully, and shoved his arm when she saw he was looking at his phone.

“This is the most important part of Tradition, Killian. You’re not allowed to miss it to answer them yet.”

“Miss it?” He asked, grinning softly at her. He made a show out of settling down, legs crossed in a mockery of hers, and every part of him seemed a little softer in the light of the growing fire. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Well,” Mary Margaret continued, her voice clearer now that Emma had moved away from the crackling fire, “I’m glad you made good time. Even if it means I didn’t get _any_ pictures of the scenery driving up.“

“I was practicing safety behind the wheel,” Emma argued, full of amusement at the exasperated voice on the other line. “Killian might have arrested me for distracted driving if I pulled out my phone.” She heard something from David then, a muffled noise of approval, and grinned a little wider. Killian was somewhere in the kitchen, if the noise of cans and boxes settling on pantry shelves was any indication, but she knew the illusion of privacy didn’t mean he couldn’t hear her.

“What did David just say?”

“He said he wants you to send us a picture of the sunrise in the morning to make up for all the pictures you haven’t sent us yet.“

“He did not.”

“It’s true. He’s nodding his head now.“

“I’m sure he is.”

If the fire hadn’t warmed the cold house up, this would have done the job. It felt like Mary Margaret was here in the room with her, like David was just around the corner helping Killian, like everything was as it should have been from the get-go. She hadn’t been prepared for how big the cabin would feel with just the two of them inside it, especially after spending so much time on the road. Emma continued pacing back and forth along the upstairs hall as she held the phone to her ear, staring down at the great room and through the windows. Killian’s moon was barely more than half-full, shining but not yet reflecting on the lake’s icy surface, and just the sight of it tempted her to stretch her legs outside.

“Emma —“ Mary Margaret’s voice had changed from light and pleasant to cautious in a second. She steeled herself, preparing for questions she wasn’t ready to answer yet. “Killian mentioned a big snow storm near Green Bay. Are you okay?“

“Oh. No, yeah, we were fine. The Range Rover made it through what was left on the road the next morning.”

“I know, he mentioned that. But are _you_ okay?“

Emma stilled again. Killian must have done more than just mention the storm, because that was a different kind of worried she was hearing, the kind that wrapped around her shoulders and squeezed her tight until her heart started to ache.

“Yeah,” She responded, loud enough to be heard from downstairs. "Nothing a bag of Funyuns couldn’t fix.”

“We really do wish we were there with the both of you.” Mary Margaret sounded relieved by her answer, pleased even, returning as she always did to a positive outlook on things. “I know we go every year, and I definitely don’t miss sitting in traffic, but the fact that you made it happen anyway — it means more than you might think it does, and not just to me.“

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That’s not my story to tell,” she replied in a frustratingly placid tone. “But it might not hurt to ask.“

She said her goodbyes after that, claiming dinner and international call rates as her excuse, and Emma hung up with impatience prickling in her skull. Her steps fell with a little too much purpose after that, the chill from the floor rising up through her socks and pulling her downstairs. Maybe she would sleep in the living room tonight.

“Swan, how would you feel about —” Killian came around the corner, hands bunching up a hand towel and chin inclined toward the landing in search of her. He interrupted himself when he saw her standing within earshot and tried again, pink coloring the tips of his ears. “I was starting to wonder where you’d wandered off to. How would you feel about grilled cheese for dinner?”

“I’d feel like that was the best idea I’ve heard all day. Did you already make it?“

“If the lady will follow me into the kitchen…” He trailed off dramatically, reaching a hand out in the air for her to take and bowed his head, eyes never really leaving hers. Feeling up for the kind of ridiculousness she could control, she set her hand in his in her best imitation of royalty, grinning to herself as he promptly tugged her toward the smell of buttery, toasted bread.

It was the promise of a hot meal that she focused on while they trailed down the hall, Emma told herself, not the warmth that emanated from his hand or the way it clasped hers so securely. She had no trouble forgetting the sensation of his fingers brushing her palm once she sat at the counter and took a bite of grilled cheese that warmed her to her toes. He shot her a smirk when he saw how well-received the food was — it wasn’t as though bread and cheese was hard to mess up — and it wasn’t hard at all to bite back her own version of the grin.

“I take it I did well, then?” He pressed. “Toasted to perfection?”

“You know you did. You just want to hear me say it.“

“I resent that, love. I slaved over a hot stove for a good ten minutes to make both of these.”

“Ten minutes?” Emma gave the sandwich in her hands a once-over, as if she’d just really noticed it was there. “What part of this took you ten minutes?“

“Grating the cheese. Although, if you prefer I were technical about the whole venture, it was finding the cheese grater itself that gave me trouble.”

“In that case…” Emma paused and licked her lips, eyes flicking back up to his. There was a hint of curiosity in them, if he was looked hard enough to find it. “Yeah. They’re perfect.“

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Just shut up and eat,” she told him, smiling into her next bite without bothering to try and hide it.

Emma did manage to get a picture of the moon in the lake, but not before procrastinating. It was ten below zero out — in _Celsius_ , she reminded herself bravely — when she finally stepped out onto the cold porch, and the work of holding her phone aloft to snap a worthwhile photo nearly froze her fingers off. The feeling came back once her clothes were emptied into her dresser, and even then they buzzed with the sensory overload. She sent Mary Margaret a picture of her sparsely filled drawers, along with a comment about needing more closet space, before she sat back and spent a moment shaking the feeling back into her fingers.

Trip after trip and year after year, this part of the house always suited her. Forest-green walls framed a bed with pale sheets and, in her opinion, the best damn pillows in the entire house. They were soft, and thick enough that they blocked the sunrise falling through the sliding door on the wall opposite the bed. It had personality, too; mismatched floorboards swelled and ebbed beneath her feet on the way to the door, books loved so well their spines were illegible lay stacked on the nightstand waiting to be demystified. Best of all was something she’d discovered on her second visit to Tradition. It didn’t matter how hard the drive had been, what kind of weather they’d suffered through to get here, how much money it had cost them or how damn cold she felt, even after a shower— all of it fell away when she had that blanket waiting for her.

The top half was faded from years of unencumbered sunlight falling in the room, but the bottom still looked new. Carefully stitched Canada geese flew over a marsh on one side, half-hidden between cattails and swamp grass, and the other featured a pattern of snowshoes, bark, plaid and bunches of pine. It was also well over twice her size, and twice as thick as any other blanket in the house — she had checked. Every year it got harder and harder to remember why she had to leave it behind, but none of that mattered now that Emma was drying her hair in front of the fire, back resting against a recliner and feet tucked between two geese.

Killian joined her as she was throwing another log onto the fire, hair damp as hers and a pack of cards in his outstretched hand. Firelight glinted off of his watch as he chose a spot that didn’t completely block the heat, which was a smart move on his part.

“I know the power’s on this time around, love, but I thoroughly enjoyed beating you at solitaire on our first night here last year.”

Emma huffed, watching him settle back against one of the corners of the sectional, his long legs brushing against an upturned corner of her blanket. She resisted the possessive urge to tug it toward her with one of her own feet. “I let you win.“

“True as that may be,” he continued blithely, unboxing the deck and tossing it just out of reach, “I thought the extra light might prove advantageous this time around.”

“Doubtful.“

“Just humor me, Swan.”

She did her best, cards messily fanned out in the space between his knees and hers. She laid her one ace face-up in the carpet and waited for him to finish arranging his side, impatiently moving one of the cards askew when his efforts took too long. Killian nudged her foot aside and fixed the pile, shooting her a look that would have been evident even if she only had the firelight to work with. Just like that, she fell backwards into her memory, and it was her grin being lit by the flames in the hearth.

Last year, she’d been unsure of who exactly David deemed worthy of an invitation to a family-only vacation, right up until they stood outside shaking hands with him in front of David’s car. Before meeting Killian, she’d only worried about an awkward car ride. After finding he was the perfect teammate when it came to teasing David while he drove, she’d been unsure for different reasons, not least of all being Mary Margaret’s idea of subtle glances in the rearview mirror.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t handle a pretty face, much less admit that Killian had one. It wasn’t that she was easily charmed, either. She just found it easy to notice him when she was so used to the other two people in the house, especially when he kept surprising her.

Emma remembered waking up to the most _intoxicating_ scent in the world wafting through the crack in her door, and caught him stirring a packet of hot chocolate into his coffee. Rather than teasing her for bedhead or her aversion to early morning sunlight, he simply reached for a mug and poured her half of his own drink.

She remembered taking turns with him chopping and hauling firewood, the way their breath clouded as they complained about the walk from the woodpile to the back porch, how both of them had come up with exceedingly creative ways to use their axe should David try to pawn the chore off on them again. He’d been admirably patient with her, though, as she split her logs in shin-deep snow.

She remembered morning hikes around the uninhabited side of the lake while the same snow melted a little, and sitting on the couches and watching thick, fat flakes come down again not six hours later. She remembered watching holiday cooking show marathons when the electricity was on, and endless card games when it wasn’t. She remembered the sound of his shower running on the other side of the hall and being struck with the feeling that the house had always been waiting for him to fill that fourth room.

Being alone here with him now only made it harder to keep the memories from dancing silently off the walls around her and twisting in the air, whispering in her ear when she found her eyes drawn back to his — _would it really be so bad if you opened that door?_

“I’m amazed a woman as distracted as you can put up such a fight, Swan. Can you even see your cards?“

Emma’s eyes focused back in on her hand, a six of diamonds on its way to one of the center piles. “I can see just fine, thank you,” she sniffed, pulling her knee to her chest even as she saw how much of an advantage he had on her. Round by competitive round, their neat game crept across the stretch of carpet between them until Emma’s piles were indistinguishable from the ones in the center. Killian’s remained as neat as they’d been in the beginning, and the more games she lost, the more she began to focus on that instead.

“You’re too organized.”

“That’s the loser in you talking.“

“I mean it. I bet you make your bed every morning.”

“ I’d be happy to take you upstairs and help you settle that bet, love.” His eyebrows waggled as he looked up at her, taking his time as he claimed a pile of cards for himself.

“I didn’t hear a denial there.“

“And you won’t.”

She blocked his next card with one of her own, a smug smile growing on her face as she watched him falter. Neither of them had slept well for the better part of the week, but then neither of them had been as warm as they felt now, either. His reluctance to head upstairs was just as palpable as her own, so she shoved her feet under the bottom of her blanket and scratched her fingers through the carpet to pull all of her cards to herself. Killian made a noise of complaint — or maybe resignation — and followed suit before laying his head back against the cushion of the couch.

“Shall we go out and watch the moonrise?“

Emma lolled her head to the side. Her fingers felt cold just from the suggestion, but there was no missing the note of hopefulness in his voice. His determination to stay awake made perfect sense now that she was thinking of it — the sky was clear, and that meant Killian would be ending his night on the porch.

“Do we have to?” She whined, already gathering herself up off the back of the chair. “It’s past freezing.”

“It won’t be if you bring that blanket with you.” His eyes rose to hers, and twin slivers of charm and persuasiveness shone in them for an irresistible moment. How the hell was she supposed to say no? Emma could think of a few ways, in fact, to do just that, but none of them felt as satisfying as seeing him smile and rush over to the door once she stood and peeled her blanket off the floor.

“After you.“

She took her first tentative step past him and paused, hissing through her teeth as her socks hit the cold wood planks of the deck. Her nose stung with cold, too, but her fire-warmed blanket provided just enough cover to help the rest of her body stand it. Barely a full minute passed by with her resting her elbows on the rail, and then she felt a strong tug on the fabric surrounding her. Emma only had time to think about protesting the sudden rush of cold air on her skin before the immediate remedy of Killian’s forearm pressed up against her shoulder presented itself. Emma shivered a little anyway, if only to make her point, and he apologized by tugging the blanket tighter around them.

It should have felt stranger than it did to stand so close, but it didn’t. She’d spent one night in the Range Rover and the next in a motel, and Killian had been within arm’s reach for both of them. This felt a little more purposeful, though. She was almost completely tucked into his side to keep the cold from sneaking through the blanket’s folds, and if she let her head fall back an inch or two she was sure she’d feel his chest there waiting.

“I can see why you hoard this thing away for yourself every year,” he commented quietly, rolling a bit of fabric between his fingers. “I could stand out here all night if I had this with me.”

“You can stand out here until sunrise if you want, but this blanket is coming back inside with me,” she shot back, wincing at the near-opaque cloud of breath her words produced. She ducked her chin under the blankets and exhaled deeply, calling warmth back to her lips. “Consider yourself lucky I’m even sharing.“

“I always consider myself lucky to be in your presence,” he drawled, tilting his own chin up to get a better look at his beloved moon. It was hard for her to keep thinking of grumpy one-liners when he looked so genuinely delighted to be freezing his ass off in pursuit of the moon. There was a certain magic in trying to see it through his eyes, and Emma let it dust her shoulders until a small stripe of clouds began to blot out the stars. Tendril after tendril crept in from the edge of the lake, lazily chasing after the moon. Emma curled her fingers around the edge of the blanket as she watched the race, as if she could redirect the snow with will power alone, and tried not to imagine the feeling of fingers filling the spaces between her own instead of swaths of fleece.

“Tell me that wasn’t worth stepping out into the cold,” Killian said later, stubble not-quite brushing against her temple as he turned toward the door. It felt an awful lot like a last-ditch attempt at drawing her in before they both succumbed to sleep, comfortable and lazy and unending like their evening in front of the fire had been. Emma let herself fall into it for the briefest moment before taking his words for what they really had to be — a cue to go back inside, to remember that the closeness she was so used to sharing with him now was shaped by necessity, not by mutual preference.

“It was definitely a good test of this blanket’s insulation,” Emma told him, sweeping back into the warmth of the house. Orange embers greeted them in the hearth, low enough that neither of them would have to watch to make sure it burnt out, and it was a welcome sight.

“I didn’t hear a denial there,” he sang out quietly, quoting her earlier words as he closed the grate in front of the fireplace. Emma was already halfway up the stairs by the time he shut off the one remaining light, but she paused to deliver her line.

“And you won’t,” she whispered in a poor imitation of his accent from the landing, smiling sleepily into the darkness below.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Emma woke up slowly to cold pricking at her nose and the muffled sound of running water. At first she thought it was rain — just the thought of having to haul in damp firewood by the armful had her frowning into her pillow — but then she heard the unmistakable clatter of a pot hitting the side of the sink. Relieved, she turned over to look out the window and found last night’s clouds had knit themselves into a thick, grey blanket, hanging high over treetops half-obscured by the morning’s fog. 

She’d expected to sleep later, given that she’d spent close to nine hours in the driver’s seat the day before, but it wasn’t difficult to peel herself out from under the covers, chase the cold away with an extra pair of socks and head downstairs.

A warm and friendly voice greeted her from the TV in the living room, announcing that the forecast called for snow. It was a local weather reporter, who stood bundled in winter weather gear he almost certainly didn’t need inside the studio. The guy pretended to shiver while he discussed the near-record lows the area had encountered the night before, and Emma smiled a little bitterly to herself. She hadn’t packed for anything less, but she wouldn’t have said no to temperatures that climbed out of the single digits, either. He went on to guess at just how much snow would fall on them between now and tomorrow night — ten to forty centimeters felt like a wide range to her.

She was still working out the conversion in her mind when the broadcast switched to a commercial for Hôtel de Glace, advertising rooms available to book for the new year. Rather than try and imagine the type of person who would willingly sleep surrounded by ice, Emma slid out of her seat and made her way into the kitchen. Whatever Killian was doing with the pans could probably become a two-person job.

He was near elbow-deep in soap suds at the sink, head down and lip bit in concentration as he scrubbed at an large metal pan. “Did you know Canada has an ice hotel?”

“In Québec, yes,” he nodded, an edge in his voice that Emma credited to his task. A little hiss of satisfaction left him as the offending spot of food came free, and then he seemed to snap out his lemon-scented stupor. “You’re up early.”

His full attention came to her, and she suddenly found herself wishing he’d kept scrubbing. His eyes were soft from sleep, and one of his sleeves had snuck down and dipped into the water when he wasn’t paying attention. She was sure she looked similarly sleep-disheveled in her sweatpants and sideways ponytail, but she doubted it had the effect on him that he did on her.

“I thought you might need some help down here with breakfast,” she answered, eyes darting around at the counters. She couldn’t see or smell anything, but the oven light was on.

“You can help me eat it later. Did our weatherman mention anything closer than Québec?”

“We’re going to get some snow later.” Her response was dismissive, it as if they weren’t potentially in for over a foot of it, and Killian hummed as he leaned against the oven door. A moment or two of quiet went by, and then he read her mind.

“We’re probably going to need groceries…and more firewood.”

Emma groaned and splayed her arms dramatically over the granite countertop, head falling against the side of her elbow. There was no chance of convincing him to let her buy one of those ready-made packages they sold on the grill aisle, assuming there were any left when they made it to the store.

“If I hadn’t just spent several days driving here with you, I’d think you sounded a little reluctant just now.” He was grinning, his arms crossed at his chest and his watch catching the light from the window. “Is the thought of getting snowed in with me again so hard to stomach?”

Emma watched the light flash across the glass and sighed, working her eyes up to his. “We get three days here, Killian. We’re supposed to hike and go skate on the pond and sit around the fire on the patio. Getting stuck inside wasn’t part of the plan.”

It sounded dramatic, but there was an undercurrent of seriousness in her words. She was used to long hours spent trailing along the undeveloped side of the lake, where bear tracks occasionally mixed with those left by the smaller wildlife. She loved watching ice whisper across the lake at night and shoving her feet into an old pair of Mary Margaret’s skates — Emma never made it more than an hour before her ankles screamed for relief, but it felt like a rite of passage to wear them. It wasn’t every day a girl got her first hand-me-downs, after all.

“Who says we have to stick to any plan?” He offered, moving to her side of the counter and leaning his elbows close to the tips of her fingers.

“David and Mary Margaret would want —”  
  
“David and Mary Margaret would want you to enjoy your time here, love,” he told her earnestly, all traces of teasing gone for the moment. “However you choose to enjoy it.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“This is your trip, too. You’re the reason I don’t have to do all of this alone.”

She expected him to respond with ease, to affirm her words with the same kind of effortless confidence he usually offered. What she got instead was a smile that stopped short to make way for a flash of unabashed surprise. Killian blinked it away before Emma could place the expression, but she couldn’t help feeling she’d stumbled across something he’d rather she hadn’t.

The oven timer went off, startling them both out of the moment. Killian ran his hand across his jaw, fingers scratching through ginger scruff, and when it fell he looked more like himself. “There wasn’t much in the cupboard, and I used up all the syrup,” he told her a bit sheepishly, pulling the oven door open to reveal a pile of pancakes and two ramekins of syrup. “And we’re out of paper plates, so —”

“So we’ll put that on the list.” Emma reached out and tore off a chunk of pancake, dipping it unceremoniously in her syrup while she interrupted him. Sweetness and spice rippled over her taste buds as she took her first bite, and she couldn’t help but hum a little in satisfaction. “Did you put cinnamon in the batter?”

His grin was back in full force, lighting up the kitchen. “A good chef never reveals his secrets.”

“It’s not a secret if I can taste it.”

His laugh bounced around the room, taking all the tension with it, but eating breakfast elbow-to-elbow with him didn’t shake his reaction from her mind. She came up with two theories on their way to the grocery store — either he’d forgotten their conversation already, which was unlikely, or he was doing a hell of a job pretending that he had.

Whether he knew he was doing it or not, Killian eased her worries as the morning went on. They re-learned the aisles of Foodland together, making up for a year spent on the other side of the continent as they piled fresh groceries into their cart. Killian was adamant that they buy the biggest bottle of medium-grade maple syrup the store sold, and she couldn’t find it in her to say no, despite the price tag on the thing. His delight was magnetic, reminding her of one of the differences between them — she practiced survival with almost no self-indulgences to her name, and he had no trouble following his heart toward things that caught his eye. So when she came across a carton of toffee and caramel ice cream three aisles later,  she went for it. 

She waited for the shadow to return to his eyes on the drive back to the house, but none came, even as they shoved their food into the creaky kitchen cabinets and moved out to chop fresh firewood into kindling. His eyes turned skyward every so often, narrowed at some indefinable point in the endless grey ocean of clouds. Emma didn’t notice his distraction until he stopped short halfway down the porch stairs and her face crashed right into the space between his shoulder blades.

“Everything okay up there?” She asked, pushing herself up half a stair.

“I thought I felt something coming down.” He turned around and snaked an arm out from under his bundle, adjusting the wood currently sneaking its way out of her arms, and pointed at a wet spot on the edge of one of the logs. “There. I’ll bet you five dollars the ground is covered with snow in an hour.”

“American dollars or Canadian dollars?”

“American, of course. They’re worth more.” He turned back up and pushed the sliding door open, glancing upward again as she passed him by. If he was right, they had plenty of time to watch the storm roll in and dump snow on them. She just preferred to do it inside, where the bite of the air couldn’t reach them.

* * *

“I’m going to make you stay out there if you don’t stop doing that.”

Emma scowled at the back of Killian as he stood in the open doorway, air and errant flakes of snow hissing past him into the room. He’d gotten up from his perch three times now to watch the oncoming storm, and not even Emma’s threat to back out of their bet had scared him into stillness.

She wasn’t sure if he had an overdeveloped tolerance for cold or an underdeveloped sense of inhibition, but his restlessness was starting to wear on her.

“You should come and watch from over here, Swan. The lake is freezing over.”

“I’d be able to see it from _here_ if you’d sit back down.”

It wasn’t entirely true; Emma could see thick sheets of powdery white beginning to blanket the treetops in the back yard. Snow had already covered the railings on the deck, or at least the ones that weren’t obscured by Killian standing in the way. A half-hour had yet to pass and they both knew she’d be paying up.

Still, she ventured, it was beautiful. One of the reasons Mary Margaret’s family had first chosen this house was for its location near the lake. As years passed and the tree line grew thicker, their view of the moonlight falling over the water remained unencumbered. 

The enormous windows on the house didn’t hurt, either; at the darkest part of the night it was easy to convince herself that the entire wall was open. Her plan was to do exactly that without moving from her perch on the couch, provided their firewood lasted the night.

Killian, it seemed, had reached a different conclusion. One minute he’d been still and the next he was trailing out of the room and into the kitchen. Emma hardly had time to shout a complaint about the energy he was wasting before he returned to her, a steaming cup cradled in his palms.

“Shall we?”

Emma saw the same look in his eyes that she’d seen the night before, while they bundled up together under her blanket and watched the moon rise over the lake. Killian always showed her so much of himself without even questioning what he was giving away, much less who he was giving it away to. A familiar pang of jealousy spread through her chest as she looked over at him, until it didn’t feel like jealousy at all. She rose up to follow him outside, ignoring the protesting goosebumps on her skin as she slid her feet back into her boots and stepped across the threshold to join him.

“Hold this a moment.” Killian stepped in close for a moment and opened one of her hands, which until that moment had been cradled close to her chest. She couldn’t do a thing but watch him gently press the glass into her palm and curl her fingers around it, warmth soaking her skin from both sides as his larger hand covered hers. Had he always been so warm to the touch, or was her own icy skin confusing her?

Killian patted her hand with his and then he released her to squat down, dragging lines into the snow. At first she thought he was trying to measure what had fallen so far, but there was no sense in the patterns he created. “All right. You can hand me the syrup now, if you don’t mind surrendering it for a moment.”

She reluctantly did as he asked and watched as he filled each of the trenches with the amber liquid — it was obvious it was syrup, now that he’d poured it into the snow. The sweet, nutty scent was different from the bargain brand she’d grown used to at home, but in the best possible way, one that had her mouth watering for breakfast even as the sky began to darken overhead.

“Do we eat this?”

He nodded. “How is it you’ve taken this trip many more times than me, Swan, and you’ve never made your own maple taffy?”

“Blame Mary Margaret, not me. She’s the one with dual citizenship.”

Taking care not to plunge his watch face into the hardening syrup, Killian reached down and dipped a finger into one of his lines. It came away at his slight touch, rising off the snow and catching new flakes on the way. “It’s ready. Want to do the honors?”

Forget how good it smelled a moment ago — maple taffy tasted like heaven. Her preference for breakfast foods had nothing to do with it, either. There was so much flavor and warmth in the bite that she was only too happy to wait for the rest of it to freeze up before heading inside, even as snow began falling thick on top of both their shoulders. She found she didn’t mind the cold so much, especially when Killian stood so the wind couldn’t reach her.

* * *

It was later, leaned up against the side of the kitchen sink, that Emma decided forgoing their plans wasn’t all that terrible. Appealing to her sweet tooth had certainly been a good place to start. Emma stood by Killian as he ran his hands under the faucet and cleared the syrup from his fingertips. She was sure it was warmer than her solution which was to lick syrup off her fingers one at a time, but she didn’t mind the waiting.

He’d taken off his watch and set it on the countertop while he washed out the syrup cup next, and like always, it caught her eye. Killian’s watch was impeccably well cared for, for all the time he spent outdoors. She hadn’t known him all that long, but she’d never seen him without it on. Reaching out with clean fingers, she turned it from one side to the other, continuing her examination even as she felt his eyes land on her.

“How long have you had this watch?”

Killian paused a moment, hands stilling under the water. “A few years now.”

“It almost looks brand-new.” She slid her thumb across the smooth glass face and down around the metal casing, admiring the designs that sat below the dials. The current phase of the moon was inlaid in a panel smaller than her pinky nail, surrounded by a dozen scattered pinpricks of stars. Emma laid it on her wrist while he dried his hands off, just to see how much bigger his hands were, before turning it over. There was a curved scratch near the seam of the battery cover, but that didn’t hold her attention for long.

“Who’s Liam James?”

“He was my brother.”

Emma’s eyes snapped up to his in an instant, watching the way he set the glass aside in one slow, calm motion.

He’d spoken with the kind of control that hid a storm, making his use of past tense unbearably clear. She felt herself recoiling from what she’d unearthed, because she knew what it felt like to be torn and left vulnerable like that, how old scars could rip open and bleed at a moment’s notice. He was still trying to hold it back from her as they stood staring at each other, little drips from the faucet punctuating the silence, but eventually the wall came tumbling down.

“James was his middle name. My father gave him this watch when he turned seventeen, before he left us for the Naval Academy. He toured for three years after that, and then his ship was raided by Somalian pirates. He received a Medal of Honor for protecting the men and women who served him, but that’s a little harder to wear without attracting attention.”

“Killian—”

“You asked, love.” He nearly spit the words at her, like the warning bark of a wounded animal faced with an enemy it couldn’t fight. The urge to run out of the kitchen was overwhelming.

Emma looked at the watch and then back up at him again before stepping closer. She uncurled his fingers one by one, setting the watch into his palm, and made sure he had a good grip on it before pulling them out of the kitchen and leaving him at the foot of the stairs.

None of the heavy tension from downstairs clouded the air in her room, but she only stayed long enough to gather her blanket off of her hastily made bed. She avoided the mirror on the wall as she passed it by, afraid of what she might see in her own expression on the way out, and found Killian right where she’d left him.

He opened his mouth as her feet fell to the last step of the stairs, but she spoke before his breath could leave him.

“I hated it when I thought you left me in that motel. You can be mad at me or ignore me if you want to, but I’m not going to do that to you.”

She moved past him after that and sat against the back of the couch, using her blanket as her armor. Her gaze fixed on the flames in the fireplace, determinedly giving him the opportunity to leave her if he wanted to. After forcing him so much out of him already, this had to be his choice.

The blanket rustled as he picked it up, accidentally tugging an edge of it off her as his hip settled next to hers. He let out a heavy sigh, one she felt as well as heard, and when he spoke up next his voice was hardly louder than a whisper.

“Last year wasn’t the first time David invited me to come up here with the three of you.”

It was a strange place to start, but Emma didn’t breathe a word. She just scrabbled her fingers under the blanket until they caught his and waited for him to go on.

“Liam didn’t have much control over his leave, but he usually managed to find a week or so during the holidays,” he continued, squeezing her hand a little absently as he muttered the words. “Sometimes it was the week before Christmas, sometimes the week after, but I liked to keep my schedule clear in case he came home. We were the only real family we ever had, he and I, but he liked to make a big deal out of it. The wanker made me buy a real tree every year after I started work, you know.”

The corner of Killian’s mouth lifted momentarily as he finished the thought, and for a while he just watched the flames in the mouth of the fireplace. She could tell he was still thinking by the way his thumb trailed across the side of her wrist, by the way he didn’t seem to notice he was doing it in the first place.

“I thought I was going to hate it up here. I really did — we’re men of the coast, us Joneses — but then we spent the better part of two days freezing our asses off and playing cards up here, the four of us, and…and a bit of the color came back to the world after that.”

“How long were you alone before that?”

It wasn’t the most appropriate question, but something new had shifted between them. He was a lost boy, and she was a lost girl. She recognized something in him that understood her better than she had known someone could. It was how she knew he wouldn’t mind if it she asked.

“Long enough to get used to the feeling.”

Silence fell again, more comfortably than the first time. An apology came to her lips more than once, but she held herself back, and little by little the snow piled onto every surface it could find.

She told herself not to get used to the feeling, that this wasn’t a moment for her to hold onto, but neither of them moved away from the other. Even when another log was needed, he came right back to the warmth that was his leg pressed against hers and their fingers twined together, like there had never been distance between them.

If he pulled her a little closer when the embers burned low, it was because the room was cold outside the blanket, not because he’d shifted to drape his arm around her shoulder. If she let her cheek fall against the curve of his collarbone once the fire went out, it was because her blanket only stretched so far around them both, not because she wanted to feel his heartbeat fall in and out of sync with hers. If neither of them went upstairs for the night at all, it was simply because they were exhausted, not because something soft and fragile had grown without her permission to be there.


	6. Chapter 6

Waking up felt like free-climbing out of a canyon. Part of Emma was fighting to climb up toward wakefulness, but every other cell in her body was eager to tumble back down toward sleep, to be free from the effort it took to fight against gravity. Positive that it was too damn early to be awake in the first place, she gave in and shifted deeper beneath the blankets, letting the quiet settle back around her.

Except she couldn’t. There was a distant drumming keeping her awake, now that she was just conscious enough to hear it, and the rattle of the furnace was too loud to ignore from downstairs. Falling asleep to the crackle of logs on the fire, Emma decided, was far preferable.

Remembering that she was downstairs led to remembering how she’d fallen asleep, and more pertinently who she’d fallen asleep next to. That distant drumming in her ear was Killian’s heartbeat beneath her cheek, and the furnace rumbling was a plow scraping its way up and down the street outside the front yard. Little disembodied details started to come to her after that — the way one corner of the blanket had bunched up and left her ankle exposed to the air, the tangles of hair tickling the back of her neck, the hard curve of metal that had to be Killian’s watch pressing into the inside of her wrist. Experimentally, she tensed the muscles in her fingers, and found them caging his in, her tattoo laying right onto the face of his watch.

 _Liam’s watch_ , she corrected herself. She coaxed her eyes open, trying to reconcile dreams from memories, and little by little their fireside chat came back to mind, too.

His brother had been four years older, and he’d been in the habit of saying so to Killian whenever his actions merited a reminder. Liam had been headstrong, a born leader, but humble enough to admit he was wrong when the occasion called for it. Killian told her he’d done his best to find opportunities for such occasions, and found no shortage of them during his teenage years.

Despite the protective way David regarded him, the near-motherly affection from Mary Margaret, the way that they both had made a point of convincing her this trip was worth taking just the two of them — all glaringly obvious signs she was wrong, now that she was thinking about it — she would have guessed Killian was an only child.

She felt guilty when an instant feeling of belonging settled through her, one that had nothing to do with their present closeness. It wasn’t anything she wanted to have in common with anyone, especially someone who seemed to come alive around her and her little family. It was just that she knew how hard it was to explain loneliness to two people who had found soulmates in one another years ago, and how rare it was to find someone who didn’t need an explanation. As bad as it sounded, Emma liked knowing that he knew loss the way that she did.

There wasn’t much to see yet in the living room; one sliver of dull grey light was tearing its way through a seam in the clouds, but the trees had yet to cast any shadows on the icy lake. Their fire had burned out hours ago, and she could feel the cold prickling at every part of her not covered in blanket. It felt obvious that she needed to go upstairs, except…

Except it didn’t, not in the slightest. It wasn’t just his loneliness that was familiar to her now — she knew what it felt like to fall asleep at his side and wake up to his breath teasing hair across her cheek. She was getting used to finding him inches away from her, closer than he ever seemed to come while he was awake. It kept happening, often enough that even she couldn’t pretend it was coincidence anymore, so she let herself consider staying for a minute .

Carefully, slowly enough that he couldn’t possibly be woken by the movement, she dragged her leg inward toward the bulk of the blanket until the cold didn’t prick at her skin. Emma held her breath, waiting for him to stir, but one minute turned into two turned into five without him so much as yawning.

So little by little, her muscles relaxed. Her head was already resting against his collarbone, but she let herself truly sink into him, and tired as she was she felt the difference. This was her letting herself be held because she wanted to, because she liked the feeling. He was warm, sturdy as the wooden beams in the ceiling overtop their heads, and he was here. There had to have been some point in the night when he made the decision to stay with her — she sure she’d fallen asleep before he had —but here he was, head shoved back against the cushion of the couch and arm encircling her like it was the most normal thing in the world.

What would it hurt her to stay until the sun rose, or until Killian woke up? She’d survived waking up next to him in the Rover and in a motel bed, hadn’t she? He wasn’t awake, and as uncanny as some of his observations were he couldn’t really read her mind. Emma could think of something to say and do with herself once he woke up, but until then she just…stayed.

 _If Mary Margaret could see me now_ , she thought dazedly to herself, looking past his shoulder out to the windows by the back porch door. She couldn’t see much, but she could see plenty of thick snow had blanketed them in the night. It would be deep enough to silence the chorus of droplets falling from icicles and hitting the deck, and thick enough to reach her knees in some parts of the yard. She was sure the house wouldn’t have been this quiet if their friends had made it, but then she was sure she would have never let herself do something like this with them around. Getting her own hopes up wasn’t as bad — if things crashed and burned like they always seemed to, the damage would be small.

It felt less and less true as the sun rose up. The darkness had made it easier to pretend, but now the shadows were chasing each other toward the walls. Killian was still asleep, but grey winter light was falling across his face. It was only a matter of time before he woke up and wondered why he’d made the mistake of curling himself around her when he could be sprawled in his own bed instead.

Emma sat up slowly, taking as little of the blanket with her as she could without freezing, and reached for the remote on the coffee table. She found the weather and turned the volume almost all the way down, waiting to see just how much damage had been done to their neck of the woods. Their friendly neighborhood meteorologist spent several minutes focused on a big storm on the west coast at first, one that seemed to be heading too far southwest to be a problem, and by the time they previewed the local weather the station went right back to commercial. She threw her head back against the bottom of the couch, resigning herself to a local car company ad and its too-catchy jingle.

“Did that man just rhyme  _low finance_  with  _funky dance_?”

Killian’s accent was thick. He sounded as groggy as he looked, but not as bewildered as she’d felt when she woke up next to him. She certainly saw confusion on his face, but it wasn’t aimed at her. He was looking down at his fingers where they were spread out against his own stomach. She curled her own into her palm as if hiding evidence, just in time for his sleep-soft eyes to find hers.

“Really makes you miss the comfort of our commercials at home, doesn’t it?”

“Billy never did dance in his commercials,” he acknowledged, tipping his head. “But I have to admit, it’s a far cry better than the alarm upstairs.”

She knew what he was talking about. David and Mary Margaret slept like rocks, so they kept their alarm at full-volume, and being a hall’s length away behind a closed door only muffled the noise by half. Killian had it worse than she did, since his room was on the same side of the house, but one of their favorite ways to spend a morning was griping about it within earshot of one of them. David always took it a little personally, which didn’t give them pause for a second.

“It’s been a long time since I woke up to anything except my alarm, actually.” he added. Then, seeming to blink fully awake, a mischievous, triumphant grin fell across his face. “You fell asleep down here with me.”

Emma scoffed. “You were holding half my blanket hostage. I wasn’t about to go upstairs and let you have it.”

“And you didn’t want me to be cold in the night down here alone!” Killian waved his hand across the blankets that still covered both of them, and Emma wished she’d had the foresight to scoot further away from him before he woke. “Love, I had no idea you were so fond of me.”

“Really? I thought I was an open book to you.”

“Sure, most of the time.” he shrugged, sitting up straighter now. She could tell he was loving this much more than he ought. Killian’s was an ego that didn’t need stroking. “But there are some walls you’ve yet to lower for me.”

“For you?” Gone was the playful bite in her voice, the scowl that never quite furrowed her brows. Now she just wanted to know what he was thinking looking at her so earnestly when his voice was so light and teasing.

“Not to worry,” he told her, blanket tumbling toward her as he knelt and pulled himself up to stand. “I love a good hike.”

Emma stared after Killian as he made his way upstairs, watching his fingers flex and curl back into his palm, and suddenly she knew what he was thinking. Despite waking up close to her, legs all but tangled together under her thick blanket, he thought he’d dreamt the closeness.

By the time she looked back at the TV screen, she’d missed the weather completely.

* * *

 

Emma stood in front of her bathroom mirror, head tipped to one side as the roar of the blow dryer filled the room. Showering had helped her clear her head, and now that she was warm and dry she felt a bit of restless energy in her muscles. Every bit of the lake she could see from the windows was covered in snow, and she was filled with the need to go and test the ice beneath it.

Killian, thankfully, had somehow read her mind. She hadn’t hardly made it across the hall to his room before she heard the squeaking of the hall closet doors, a sure sign he was digging out their skates if there was one. The sound of boots clunking onto the floor confirmed it for her, so she hung over the landing rail to speak with him directly.

“Shouldn’t we eat first?” She asked, braid swinging in the air below her chin. “Or is this a  _no swimming half an hour after you eat_  kind of thing?”

Killian twisted to look up at her, trying his best to look unamused. “I’ve already eaten, Swan. You’re the one wasting our time.”

She wanted to defend herself, but he was right. The sun had finally succeeded in breaking through the clouds, and it wouldn’t be long before the ice overtop the lake began to melt. Rather than let him off easy, she scowled and made her way down the stairs, searching for the fastest possible definition of breakfast that they had in their pantry.

They were outside the minute the both of them were properly fed and bundled. Emma fought with the old, stubborn laces on her skates for longer than Killian had to, but she managed to catch up with him halfway down the path to the lakeside. The new-fallen snow was still too soft to crunch beneath the metal blades beneath their feet, but it was sturdy enough to take some of the pressure off of her ankles.

“Ready to watch me skate circles around you again?” She asked him, breath clouding in front of her. It felt invigorating, now that she was awake enough to appreciate it.

“What do you mean, again?” Killian shot her a look, but he was smiling. He was a step or two ahead of her, and every so often Emma let her footprints fall on top of his. It was easier to walk that way, rather than making her own set. “I remember us both being equally terrible.”

“You’re remembering wrong, then, because I’m definitely better than you.”

“Is that a challenge, Swan?”

“You could call it that. I seem to remember you telling me you liked that type of thing.”

They’d reached the edge of the beach now, only recognizable by the sudden recession of snow. Emma reached down and brushed through what was left of the powdery mix, finding solid ice beneath her gloved knuckles.

“Feels thick enough here.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s thick out there, though,” he countered, grimacing at the snow-covered lake. It was much harder to tell what lay beneath like this, when they were alone on the shore together. “Perhaps we should give it another night.”

She made a dismissive noise and reached out for him, tugging him onto the first few centimeters of ice with her. Nothing happened, which seemed as good a sign as any to keep going. They made it a few meters out before Killian paused, throwing her another cautious look as his hand dropped from hers.

“We should at least test it first, Emma. Two at a time is asking for trouble.”

Emma sighed and decided to indulge him, if only for a moment. She’d seen the single-digit lows the weatherman was predicting for the area on her phone the night before the storm — that kind of thing always made for perfect skating conditions before. She took a few cautious steps out onto the ice and, after taking a moment to shoot him a smug look, skated out more boldly. Her feet glided through snow as she circled back toward him, weight shifting rapidly as she got used to the motions again. 

Ironically, she had almost completely made it back to his side when she felt her skate catch on an uneven patch of ice. She planted her feet on instinct, arms flying away from her sides to keep her upright, and the wobbling motion sent her right into the lake, both feet completely submerged in the half-frozen mud.

“Shit!” 

She tried to wrench her foot out from the hole, but the blade of her skates were making things difficult. Emma heard the crunch of snow under Killian’s feet and waved him off wildly, trying hard to pull herself free from the bottom of the lake.

“Emma, let me help!”

“I’m fine!” She shouted back, even as pain bit at her toes. It was the kind of cold that felt white-hot, as if a fiery hand had wrapped around each of her ankles. Her heart was racing as she struggled to wrench her feet out from the water, breath coming in short pants until her feet finally came free, one after another. She awkwardly lunged back toward Killian, taking fast steps in case it happened again, and her heart continued its manic beat even after she planted her ass into the snow. It was an ungraceful landing, but she only cared about getting her skates off.

Killian knelt down in front of her, grabbing hold of her gloved hands. She hadn’t seen him take hers off, but then she was focusing on fighting the dizziness she felt when she looked at anything but her skates. He set her hands on her knees, holding one of his over them to make sure she didn’t try again, and pulled a knife out of his pocket with the other. Killian slid the blade up through her laces on each foot and tugged the skates off her feet, dumping water out of each one.

“We’ll come back for them later,” he told her, folding the knife back into its handle. “Think you can walk up the steps?”

She tried standing up, and a hundred knives pressed into the arches of her feet. “Probably not,” she admitted, trying to keep the pain out of her voice. Exposing her socks to the air made her feel colder, which didn’t seem like it should even be possible. How did half a minute in a few centimeters of water cause so much damage?

“All right. Let’s get you inside.” Killian bent toward her and scooped her up into his arms, navigating the stairs pretty damn gracefully for someone wearing ice skates of his own. Emma didn’t have it in her to protest, especially not after the first blast of warm air in the living room hit her. Killian set her down in the chair by the fire and disappeared upstairs for a minute, returning with a few pairs of socks and her blanket from her bed. 

“It’s really not that bad,” she insisted, before he even made it off the landing. Emma sat sideways in the chair, shoving her bare feet as close as she could to the fire without touching the hot grate. She’d busied herself marveling at how cold she felt, even the parts of her the water hadn’t touched. Once she got past the whole temperature thing, it was kind of fascinating. “I mean, sure, they’re blue, but they hurt like hell. That’s a good sign, right?”

Killian deposited the blanket on top of her before sitting down on the edge of the hearth. “That may very well be, but you’re going to wear these anyway. You need to warm up.”

“I wasn’t refusing the socks, I was —” Emma hissed again as he touched her ankle. His skin burned on hers, even though he’d only laid the back of his hand against the top of her foot. “I just didn’t want you to be worried.”

“Me, worried over a woman who just willfully plunged herself into a frozen lake?” He smiled briefly, only the smallest bit of  _I told you so_  flashing in his eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Killian held his socks near the fire for a minute or two, glancing at her every so often. The attention should have felt a little overwhelming, but she could only focus on the warmth.

“Have you ever had to do this before? At work, I mean.”

He shook his head, turning his wrist closer to the fire. “Each of us are trained to respond to any kind of emergency, but no. David and I are both lucky in that regard.”

“So you’re saying it takes a special type of idiot to go out and fall through a frozen lake to prove her point?” She smiled, trying to get him to ease up a little bit. The whole scenario felt a little backwards with her trying to ease his mind.

“What I’m saying,” he answered pointedly, reaching for her ankle again, “is that blue is not your color.”

Killian un-balled both pairs of socks he’d been holding and fit them one by one over her feet, folding them over to accommodate for the extra fabric pooling at her ankles. Emma giggled at the absurdity of his socks on her smaller feet, wiggling the extra fabric where it dangled off the tip of her toes. “These are very fashion forward,” she commented dryly, recognizing them now that they were unfurled. “When did Granny give them to you?”

“How do you know I didn’t knit them myself?” He asked defensively.

“Because I have my own pair. They have ducks instead of fish.”

“Don’t ducks fly south for the winter?”

She nudged him with her heel impatiently, accidentally shoving him a little toward the fire. “Answer the question.”

“A few winters ago, I think. It was one of the years when it snowed Christmas Day. I was scolded very thoroughly for layering up in dress socks to come to dinner, and received these as punishment.”

Emma pretended to gasp at his choice of words, even though she remembered feeling the exact same way about her own pair at first. All it had taken was wearing them to change her mind, just like it took wearing his now to remember she’d left hers at home.

“Mind if I borrow them for a while?” She made a point of posing the question casually, as if their plan to go skating on the lake had gone perfectly. Killian picked up on her tone at once, his smile a little more genuine this time around. Emma held up her other foot for him as he fit the next set of socks over top the first pair, pointing and flexing her toes just to prove that she could, and waited for the inevitable  _be more careful next time_  to fall from his lips the way it would have almost certainly fallen from David’s. But Killian didn’t say a word. He just shifted closer to her, almost reverently quiet, and began to massage warmth back into her insoles.

It was one hell of a way of getting the feeling back into her nerves, but Emma still tensed in his hold.

“Why are you doing that?”

“You’re in a bit of shock from the cold, love. You’re still bloody freezing. ”

“No, I meant…you don’t have to do that.”

Killian paused for a second, one large hand still gingerly keeping the fabric of his sock from sliding down her ankle. “Did it ever occur to you that I’m not doing it because I  _have_  to?”

She blinked, a half dozen potential meanings to his words swimming through her mind. If he didn’t have to, then that had to mean he  _wanted_  to. And if he  _wanted_  in the specific way that she  _wanted_ , well, then she was just going to go along with her heart this time around.

Emma surged forward, just carefully enough that she didn’t knock him into the grate or kick him in the face, and laid her hand on the side of his neck. Warmth from the fireplace bathed her fingers as her lips found his, and oh, he’d been right about her being colder than she’d realized. Forget the awkward way she had to reach to hold onto him, or the surprise she felt when her fingernails grazed his hairline, Killian was twice as warm as her blanket. The hand that had reached out to steady her softened a little at her hip, and her heart began to speed up again, beating something like  _finally_  onto the edge of her ribs until he pulled away from her. 

“Emma.” His voice was quiet, a little ragged. “What are you doing?”

The spell broke. That wasn’t breathlessness she was hearing, it was him pleading with her to stop before she got ahead of herself. Her cheeks burnt as she blinked furiously, fumbling backward away from him until she had room to stand.

“Emma, wait. You shouldn’t walk —”

She shook her head, feeling dizzy again, and forced herself to give him the steadiest smile she could muster. “I’m sorry. That was a mistake. I’m going to…I’m sorry.”


	7. Chapter 7

Emma leaned her hips against the sink and ran her fingers under the tap, wiggling them back and forth under the steady stream until she saw steam rising from her skin. It felt hotter than it would have had she not recently spent half a minute in a frozen lake, but that didn’t matter. Most of her focus was going toward keeping careful count of the seconds that were passing by, because five minutes was all the time Emma was giving herself before going back downstairs to rejoin Killian.

Killian. Emma’s fingers stilled for a moment as she listened to the television downstairs, muffled sound trailing up through the walls of her room. Water dripped off her hands onto her socks and the tile floor as she listened for signs that he was moving around, but all she heard was a forecast for clearer skies overnight.

 _Three minutes, Emma_. She lifted the stopper on the sink drain until the basin filled halfway and tossed a washcloth under the water. Once every stitch of the fabric was wet, she wrung it out and laid it over her eyes, both palms laying flat and final on the countertop.

The darkness was better. She felt less dizzy when her eyes were closed, and the buzz of her nerves calmed down considerably when her focus moved to her other senses. That wasn’t to say she was feeling better, exactly. Every muscle from her calves to her toes had started to throb from the moment her headache began to recede. Part of her suspected that this was just how it felt to have her body heat back up again, but the other thought it was just easier to keep moving.  

It wasn’t just her body that was returning to normal, either. Her mind had been clouded by the cold, too, and now that it wasn’t she could see what had happened downstairs didn’t have to ruin everything. She could take this washcloth off of her face and find her way back downstairs. She could sit next to Killian and watch the weather without running out of the room again. He’d said himself that she was out of it, shocked by the cold, and she could use that as an excuse. The way he’d breathed her name in confusion and called worriedly after her when she tumbled up the stairs made her certain he would agree.

If he didn’t quite buy it, then that would just make two of them, wouldn’t it?

Emma made her way down the stairs, careful of her feet and their newly restored senses. They were sore as hell, and likely would be for a while, but she’d put up with worse chasing down Boston’s criminals in stilettos. Part of her fiercely missed it, hated the feeling of being walled in by the snow when home had so much more room for her to breathe. There, whether it be gravel or asphalt or sand-scrubbed planks on the boardwalk, she could always take herself places her thoughts couldn’t follow. Here, she could make it down to the edge of the driveway…if she shoveled it first. Given how difficult a few steps down the hardwood staircase felt, she figured that wasn’t an option.

Killian was cooking something, or maybe cleaning. Whatever he was doing was making enough noise to cover the sound of her footsteps on the stairs, and she couldn’t tell if it was for her benefit or his. The closer she got to the kitchen and the noises coming from it, though, the more her curiosity warred with her reluctance to find out for certain.

_He might want to be left alone._

_He hates being alone._

_He didn’t follow you upstairs for a reason._

_He’s giving you space. You’re the one who went upstairs._

She made it over the threshold of the kitchen, trading cold wood for slightly warmer tile, and learned there was no limit to how wrong she could be about him. Killian wasn’t making noises to hide behind them, the way she would have. He was standing in front of the largest skillet they kept in the cabin, shuffling two grilled cheeses around inside it to keep them from sticking and burning. He was cooking them dinner, like nothing had happened at all.

“That smells good.”

He didn’t answer her immediately, instead moving to switch off the burner and set his wooden spatula down. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to come back downstairs.”

Emma bristled, wondering if she’d misjudged the silence. Her plan to apologize was half-formed at best; she’d stopped halfway down the stairs to tug his socks off her feet, prepared to give them back in what to had be the strangest peace offering ever made. It was supposed to be a sign that she was feeling okay, that maybe she had been a little delirious from the cold before. That he could forget. The logic seemed much more solid two minutes ago than it did now, as she stood watching the careful shift of his shoulders.

“I made it,” she joked lamely, running her thumb against a seam in the fabric of the socks. “Look, I’m sorry for —”

“Emma, don’t tell me you’re sorry. Not for that.” He sounded so fiercely sure, almost _practiced_. That couldn’t be right. He seemed to notice how he sounded once the words were out in the air, though, and finally met her eyes. Emma didn’t see any of the hostility she’d been expecting, and her death grip on the socks loosened a bit. “And don’t tell me you’re not hungry, either, because it’d be awfully rude of me to eat both of these without offering you yours.”

Emma hesitated, even with relief flowing through her. He wasn’t supposed to be the one clearing the air, giving her an out, making her an _apology sandwich_. He had all the right in the world to be as frustrated with her as she was with herself.

But he wasn’t.

“I wasn’t going to say I’m not hungry,” she allowed, twisting her mouth into a grin. It looked just as unconvincing reflected in his eyes as it felt on her lips, but he threw her grilled cheese on a plate like nothing had happened. Emma reached out for it, but he tugged it further away, setting it pointedly in front of one of the island barstools.  

“I know you’re hardly a fragile flower, but you might consider sitting down for a while. It’ll be a lot easier to get around on feet that aren’t frostbitten.”

“I was getting around to it,” she answered him, as if that had been her goal the entire time. “It’s not like we’re going to have to amputate them.”

“Don’t be so sure. You might end up with a pair of peg legs.”

She snorted, and the air between them got a little thinner. This was the man she remembered meeting their trip last year, and getting to know in the days after that.

There was that first night, the one where everything that could have gone wrong did. Killian had calmed her nerves about the power outage by suggesting a game of bridge; after so many days in the car she was loath to sit down, and wary of taking her focus off the weather app on her phone, but one playful promise that it would be worth her while was distraction enough. He was a good teacher, she was a fast learner, and together they won close to twenty dollars out of David’s pocket before the first logs of firewood burned down.

And then there was the second night, when she’d found him scrubbing away at dishes before Mary Margaret could even get to them. He was elbow-deep in water, scrubbing bits of pasta and baked-on sauce away from a glass baking dish, and he’d entertained her less-than-subtle attempts to figure out what he was like at work until the very last plate was dry. No, this was not his first year serving in law enforcement. Yes, he had worked with other partners before being teamed up with David. No, he wasn’t actually serious about the skinny dipping idea he’d suggested at dinner. _Unless you’re offering_ , he’d tacked onto his reply, bringing what was only the first of many blushes to her cheeks.

And the third and final day of their stay, he hadn’t shied away in the slightest when she got too competitive on the hiking trail. A few inches of snow didn’t stop either of them from half-jogging their way to the top of the hill on the other side of the lake, and she’d found herself (mostly her legs) wholeheartedly in agreement with him when he mourned their lack of a sled on the way down.

Emma had expected things to change back in Boston, but Killian started to find his way over to her brother’s house more nights than not. His presence had become a standard fixture in the duplex before the snow melted from the rooftops around them — she got used to nights spent screaming at the television as the Bruins’ young captain scored his first hat trick on home ice, gathered around the tiny kitchen table that bowed in the middle until their plates were empty, to the point where it felt lonely when there were no police vehicles stealing her spot in the driveway. It no longer surprised her to find Killian asleep on the couch when she came over for breakfast with Mary Margaret, or even on top of her bed that one time.

He’d happened into their lives without making a fuss, without any intention to leave, and that was exactly what scared her so much. Killian was tangled in with everything good in her life, and there was no pulling herself free without making a mess of everything.

“Is it really that bad?”

Emma’s sandwich sat untouched on the plate between her elbows. It smelled just as delicious as it had a minute ago, and she quickly snatched it up to belay the curious look on his face.

“It’s awful,” she lied, biting into the crisp, buttery bread.

“Oh, is it? Is that why you just zoned out for a minute?”

“Yeah. In fact, you probably better give me some of yours. I can suffer through the rest of this alone.”

He swatted her hand out of the way just as her fingers grazed the crust, and the simple touch buried the rest of the tension lingering in the air. The trick, it seemed, was finding things to do — so long as they were hauling firewood in from under the deck, or drying dishes and stacking them back in the warped wood cabinets, she didn’t feel like she had to keep a safe distance away.

It was later on when Killian went up to take one of his record-breaking showers that things began to blur again. It snuck up on Emma; one moment she was curled into a corner of the couch browsing the movie channels, and the next she could smell his shampoo. The scent of summer filled the air, covering even the smell of the fire. She closed her eyes and curled her toes, half-expecting the call of a seagull at any moment, but only a second passed before she blinked back into focus. She couldn’t do this to herself — not when she’d have to smell it on him.

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it? She could handle the smell of the ocean. She liked the smell of the ocean. It was the way the ocean smelled coming off his skin that she couldn’t handle, no matter how much distance she put between them.

* * *

Emma made it through the next few hours of the night without letting her mind drive her wild, but it was a near thing. She’d turned the TV on to a _Christmas Classics_ marathon and gotten up before the first commercial interrupted it in search of David’s carefully written instructions for the return trip.

 _Please don’t be out in the car_ , Emma muttered to herself, digging through her backpack near the foot of the stairs. She remembered shoving them somewhere out of sight the moment she and Killian had pulled out of the driveway, and dutifully ignoring them for the rest of the trip, but not where they had ended up.

“That’s a funny way of packing. I usually put everything in the bag.”

Emma sighed in frustration as Killian stepped in the room, carefully avoiding the piles of things she had yet to pack as he came to stand at her side. He smelled just as good as she expected him to, but she was too frustrated to linger on it the way she would have had he met her downstairs.

“David’s stupid step-by-step instructions aren’t in here. I was going to try to route it.”

“You mean his directions?” She nodded, twisting her back to look up at him. “You asked me to put those in the glove box, I think.”

Emma slumped against the headboard of her bed, heaving a long and dramatic sigh. Sure, the whole day was probably catching up to her in terms of energy, but she wanted to figure this out. They’d be taking the return trip all in one go, as they did every year, and with twenty-two hours of road between them and Boston, she was determined to shave off every minute she could.

“I’ll go down and look, if you want,” he offered, starting for the door as if going outside with wet hair didn’t sound terrible.

Emma shook her head and continued to shove everything right back into her bag. “It’s fine. It’s not like it’s going anywhere. I’ll just use it as backup for the GPS.”

Killian must have seen the struggle on her face, or maybe felt it coming off of her in waves, but either way he stifled whatever reply had been on its way out of his mouth. Instead he just let her be and moved back into his own room. Emma heard zipping from his room and assumed he was packing himself up, too, but then she heard his boots on the stairs, the front door pulling open and shut again. 

“It wasn’t out in the glove box,” said a windswept, satisfied-looking Killian. He’d returned to lounge in her doorway ten minutes later, brandishing the crumpled instructions. “Care to guess where I found it?”

“Inside a magician’s hat?”

“Close. You had them shoved inside a pair of your sneakers, Swan.” He wrinkled his nose as he handed her the page, coming close enough that she didn’t have to stand, and suddenly she knew what he was going to say before. He was still worried about her, even hours after she’d warmed back up.

“Thanks for going to get it,” she told him, accepting what he seemed to think was a humble nod, “but I’m okay. I’ll be over it in the morning.”

Killian didn’t look convinced in the slightest, but he didn’t argue with her this time, either. She didn’t think it was his intention, but the silence stretched just a second too long between them before he found something else to say.

“I’ll go pack up the cooler then, so we’re out of here faster,” he told her gently, saying something else entirely with his eyes. He had a terrible habit of doing that with her. It wasn’t lying, but sometimes he was much more honest with her in silence than he was with his words. “Were you watching whatever’s on TV?”

“Yeah. I’ll be back down for it later.”

She meant it when she said it, but a half hour passed and Emma had only moved to slump further against her pillows. Her clothes were folded, and only really needed to be transferred back in with the rest of her luggage, but there was something pleasant about the muffled sound of the TV wafting up through her door that made drifting off sound like a better idea. If she just stayed here buried under everything she’d packed, room lit chiefly by the glow of her phone, she could be sleeping in minutes.

But Mary Margaret had other ideas. She was outright scolded when she answered the phone with a quiet hello.

“Emma! You can’t be asleep yet. It’s not even eleven!”

“What’s wrong with getting a full night’s rest?” She argued back pleasantly, glad to hear the familiar voice on the other end of the line. Mary Margaret still had a month to go until Baby Nolan arrived, but she was getting plenty of practice in.

“Nothing,” she answered quickly, reining it in a bit. “I just wanted to make sure you were having a good time up there. It’s strange being home celebrating with David instead of both of you.”

“Celebrating?”

“Emma, the ball drops in…an hour and twenty minutes. You’re not watching the countdown?”

“No…I didn’t know it was on.”

“ _Emma_!”  Mary Margaret gasped, and Emma could practically see the whites of her eyes. “You forgot it was New Year’s Eve? What were you doing to make you forget an entire holiday?”

“Packing to leave tomorrow?”

“Are you sure that’s what you’re doing? You don’t sound sure.” There was a smile in her words now, mixed in with the surprise.

“I am. I’m fine now,” she emphasized, “but I fell ankle-deep in the lake today trying to skate. It took a bit of my energy, I think.”

“Oh, Emma. No wonder you sound worn out.” Her tone shifted right into the kind of motherly tone that Emma had been craving all week. Off the cuff, is was a pretty effective way of changing the subject. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. We cut your laces to get the skates off, though. Sorry.”

“No, don’t worry about that. I’m just glad it wasn’t anything deeper…I can’t believe you waited until now to tell me, but I’m glad it wasn’t deeper.”

Emma let her go on for a while, until it got too hard to hide her yawns in her pillows. Mary Margaret promised to wish David happy new year for her on the condition that she left as early as possible. Six in the morning was coming far too early, in her opinion, but she agreed. 

“Sleep good, Emma. And don’t you dare forget to tell me if you end up _celebrating_ the New Year with Killian.”

She paused, finding a voice that wasn’t twisted with regret. “I won’t. See you soon.”

* * *

Morning came too quickly for Emma’s liking. She blinked awake to shower, said a lengthy goodbye to her blanket until next year and dragged herself down the stairs before the clock hit five thirty. Killian was already outside, packing his share of luggage into the back of the Range Rover, but she couldn’t face him just yet. She’d kissed him on New Year’s Eve, without meaning to, and he hadn’t immediately reciprocated. That wasn’t the kind of thought she could handle without at least one cup of coffee in her system.

After downing nearly the full mug in one go, Emma took stock of the kitchen around her. They’d washed everything from dinner the night before, emptied what little was left in the fridge, taken the trash out — everything else was left for the clean-up crew to take care of. She was almost certain, given that Mary Margaret’s parents owned the place, that they wouldn’t mind a missing thermos or two.

“Got enough room back there?” She made a curious face at him through the space between the seats as she set the mug and their driving directions in the center console. Killian, who apparently hadn’t heard her shuffle down the driveway, snapped his head up. His eyes softened the second they latched onto hers, and it felt a little early for that, too.

“I’m ready for your things, if you’ve got them,” he nodded, patting the cooler his arm rested on. With no food to stow in it this time, he’d shoved half their emergency camping gear in it instead, freeing up a little room on the top rack of the Rover. “Ready to go?”

Emma twisted back to look at the house, watching the first threads of sunlight knit themselves in the reflection on the windows. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I’ll go bring my things out.”

She was back two minutes later, having spent most of it fumbling with the keys. They stuck in the heavy lock on the door, and her gloves didn’t make the job of locking up any easier. Still, the caffeine was starting to make its way through her veins, and the sky was turning a hopeful purple. Maybe the ride back wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe it was just being stuck inside these walls that had made everything inside her feel so large. 

Killian shut the door on the passenger side of the car, loud enough to echo across the street into the woods. She frowned at the noise, wondering what had bothered him, but it seemed like an accident. 

He had found his thermos — she’d set it down on his seat, obvious enough that he would notice before it got cold — and seemed to be torn between taking a sip and setting it down on the hood of the car. The lip of the cup was popped open, steaming into the chilly air around them, but he had yet to pull it to his lips.

“What?” Emma asked, watching her feet every few steps to stay clear of the ice. “Did you think I was going to make myself a cup and make you stop to buy some? We’re on a tight schedule, Jones, and we’re sticking to it.”

Killian looked up at her, back down to the thermos, and carefully pulled his hand away. One, two, three steps and he was right in front of her. “I can’t go twenty-four hours in the car like this, Emma.”

“Okay, so we’ll stop and get a refill at the —”

One of his hands wrapped around her side, pressed gently through her coat into her spine. The other reached to cup her jaw, and Emma forgot whatever she’d been about to say before the contact. His intentions were perfectly clear, but he still paused for a moment before catching her lips with his.

It was the complete opposite of the kiss she’d given him by the hearth. The brush of his thumb across her cheek was intentional; the tilt of his jaw had a specific purpose behind it. Without saying a word, he was making it absolutely clear that he meant every single touch. Emma felt a sigh rumble up his throat when her hand laid on his chest, even through her gloves, and felt herself sway into him, struck by the tiny sound in the vast quiet around them. His arm tightened around her immediately as he pulled back, making sure she was steady on her feet without moving more than a breath away. 

Killian took a moment to look at her, eyes taking their time dragging up from her lips to her eyes. She could still feel the heat from his mug lingering in the curves of his fingertips, but the warmth was nothing compared to his breath mingling with hers, to the brush of his nose against her cheek.

“That,” he breathed. “I wasn’t going to wait twenty-four hours to kiss you.” 

“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours since last night,” she managed to mutter, stringing the words together with confusion. “I kissed you last night.”

“Last night doesn’t count, Swan.” He trailed the side of his finger against the shell of her ear and gave her a little smile.

“Because I jumped you?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t want our first kiss to be out of gratitude, or because your judgment was addled by freezing half to death.”

“First?”

His smile was brilliant, outshining even the oncoming sun.

“Yes, first, you daft woman. I’m not very fond of one-time things.”


	8. Chapter 8

It was twenty-two hours to Mary Margaret and David's little duplex in the suburbs of Boston, but Emma and Killian were at least ten minutes late getting on the road. It was something about the difficulty she was having stepping out of his hold, or winding her fingers out of his hair. He seemed to be suffering with her; the moment she reversed them out of the driveway his hand opened on the center console between them. It was a clear invitation, one she took after tugging off her glove with her teeth. She didn't care about the freezing air the second her fingers laced with his, much less the fact that the next time she stood up it'd be nighttime.

She learned to care around her eighth hour on the road, where even his thumb running across her knuckles wasn't distracting her like it had before, but there was nothing she could do about it just yet. Emma had made this trip enough times to know which rest stops to avoid and which ones to flock toward, and the next good one wasn't for another forty miles or so.

Emma couldn't stop herself from wondering what it would be like if Mary Margaret and David been with them in the car. Mary Margaret's eyes would go wide, as if she was seeing things, she'd say something like I knew it and then the accusations would begin. David would look them over, albeit more quietly, and he'd give Emma his best impression of Granny's laser-eyed stare. Her family loved her, and they loved Killian, but together? She'd never let anyone's imagination run this far.

Killian had done his best to keep them both awake until the sun was high enough to do that job for him. It didn't always mean talking — sometimes he asked how her ankles felt (sore, but she was downplaying it) or if she wanted to stop and eat (when he was driving, he could pull over whenever he wanted) but other times he just twisted her hand to examine the tattoo on her wrist, or stared out the window. It was, in essence, just like last year's ride home, except this time she hadn't resisted the urge to reach out for him. She'd let herself do it.

It was incredible how much difference five linked fingers could make, how the heel of a palm pressed against hers could feel. She'd fallen asleep next to him nearly every night of the trip, but the sun was up now. The the choice to take hold of his hand was a very deliberate step, and Emma was aware of it every second their fingers were joined together. It felt right that they were backtracking to the east coast, seeing as she'd been fighting the pull to him for a solid year.

Killian squeezed her hand when the radio started to buzz with static, letting go afterward to find something clear. Every so often they hit parts of the state that had nothing to offer, and they filled the air with conversation, or a work call that needed to be made. Emma made hers quickly, if only so she could force him to put his on speaker and hold the phone between them.

"You know, I was starting to think you lost my number."

David sounded a bit far away at first, as if he was outside, but the sounds of silverware and clinking plates were close. Emma realized it was dinnertime back in Boston and flashed her eyes to Killian's, grimacing at their timing.

"I missed you too," Killian responded smoothly. He made it seem like they'd never left, like Mary Margaret and David were expecting them at the table. "And Happy New Year."

David made an unimpressed noise. "You're not calling to let me know you'll be late, are you? I gave Emma very specific directions —"

"She's got them right in front of her." Killian made his voice placating, like he was talking to a child, and Emma couldn't stop the little laugh that bubbled up from her throat. They hadn't so much as looked at his directions since leaving, and didn't plan to until they hit the rest stop. "Rather, I should say I've got them in front of me. Emma's refused to hand over the wheel until nightfall.

"Until the gas gauge says empty," Emma corrected him, aware that the his suggestion was coming much quicker than the latter. "Happy New Year, David. You save me any cake?"

"We didn't have cake this year."

"What? Why?"

"Because there weren't four people here to eat it. Mary Margaret's waiting for the two of you to get back before we celebrate, since you two forgot."

"What makes you think I forgot, mate?"

Emma blushed, eyes focusing on the license plate of the SUV in front of her as Killian teased him. They had yet to discuss anything that had happened between her skating mishap and now, though. She wasn't about to do it on speakerphone.

"We didn't interrupt your dinner, did we? I know it's got to be harder eating with the rash."

"Actually, I think I beat it," David answered proudly. "I'm hoping I beat it, at least. Mary Margaret isn't good with the electric razor."

An offended hey made its way through Killian's phone, signaling Mary Margaret's approach.

"He didn't tell me anything about switching the blade beforehand, he just said to switch it on and take my time!" Mary Margaret argued, seemingly pulling the phone closer so they both could hear her case.

Listening to the both of them argue about his shaving routine made her miss home terribly. She wanted to be there with them, feet curled under her chair at the table while she argued Mary Margaret's case to annoy David. The warm lamp light in the kitchen would glow down while they finished dinner, making it seem like the sun hadn't set on them yet, and if it was chilly she'd warm herself up by shoving her fingers under the hot sink water that Killian was using to do the dishes. He'd wash and she'd dry while her brother and his wife put the food away, and then the four of them would tumble over to the couches to argue about the night's movie choice. Maybe it didn't sound as remarkable as a cross-country trip into Canada did, but given the choice she'd pick home every time. The next twelve hours of her life couldn't pass soon enough.

Emma shifted lanes and cut around the car in front of them, chasing the sun set filtering through the snowy trees. Killian spent a little time asking about their return to work and whether they'd both be back on schedule at the start of the week, but after a few minutes he seemed to sense the ache in her chest.

"Hang on a minute, Dave," Killian said, interjecting himself in the middle of David running through their upcoming week. "Emma's asking for the phone. She wants to speak with the both of you."

She hadn't so much as lifted her hand from the wheel, but she gave him a grateful, lingering look as she wrapped her hand around the phone and pressed it to her ear.

"Hey," she said quickly, picturing the confusion and amusement on the other line. "Listen, we really are making good time. I dragged myself out of bed before six so we could hit the road."

"Six, huh? You must really miss us."

Emma's smile turned softer for a moment, even though he couldn't see it. "I might have…just a bit."

"Only just a bit?"

"Killian took it a lot harder than I did. The poor guy cried himself to sleep the first night in the car."

"It's true," Killian agreed, with a lofty nod that David couldn't see. "I tried to stifle my tears into the pillow, but Emma was too close to hear."

David wasn't having any of it, but she could hear a smile in his voice that hadn't been there when he first picked up. He'd missed them too.

* * *

Her chilly hands grasped impatiently at the handle of the gas nozzle, tapping to keep warm while she watched money drain out of her savings account and into her gas tank. Killian had offered to pay several times, just like he'd offered to take the wheel, but she'd insisted, and now she was paying for it with frozen fingertips.

Or she was, until Killian came back from the convenience store with two paper cups of coffee in his hands. He slid in front of her and pulled her fingers away from the nozzle so she could take the cups from him. She would have resisted, only the steam rising out of the holes in the lid was too enticing to resist. Emma pulled the seat back for him while she waited, trying her best to adjust the mirror to where he usually kept it. He had to fix it again when he sat down next to her, but the tiny smile that pricked at the corner of his mouth let her know he'd noticed.

Maybe it was the coffee making her more playful, or maybe it was just knowing that sunrise would find them home. Emma didn't care about putting a name to her happiness for the moment — it was enough to hear the hiss of protest he made when her cold fingers snuck up under his glove.

Holding hands with him wasn't bold by anyone's standards, but it was all Emma needed. She'd squeeze her fingers into the spaces between his when the radio station started cutting out. He'd squeeze back every time they passed another sign that listed the miles until home, reminding her of what she was fighting to stay awake for. Emma hadn't said it in so many words, but she had a feeling he knew that her stubbornness came from the same place it always did — she wanted to walk through the door of somewhere she belonged and stay a while.

It was so gradual that she almost missed it, but the scenery started to flatten out around them. Hour by hour the horizon line dropped until it was just sloping hills pushing them up and down. It was hell on their gas mileage, but David's vehicle had seen much worse than this.

"Just a few more hours left, love." Killian's fingers tightened around hers a little more firmly, startling her out of a daze she wasn't aware she'd slipped into. She'd been counting on the glow of the headlights to keep her up, but even they were fading into the night ahead of them. She should have let him drive first.

"Do you have any coffee left?"

He shook his head, smiling without taking his eyes from the road. "You drank it all."

She leaned her head back against the headrest and looked at him pointedly, trying to act unappreciative of his tone. The thing was, he was right. Emma had eaten through most of the snacks they'd packed for the trip, and she'd drank all the caffeinated beverages they had. He'd offered to pull off the highway and find a place that was still open, but she refused to lose a second of the momentum they'd hit on the road. She liked it like this; him, her and the left lane in front of them, so she hunkered down in her seat and let her gaze drift far ahead.

The pad of Killian's thumb stroked across the side of hers every few seconds, keeping time with whatever was playing on the radio. She knew what he was doing and fought against it as long as she could, but then he started humming along with the radio, and turned the heat up in the car.

"What?" He'd said innocently, feigning confusion at her glare. "You're cold, Swan."

She followed his eyes down to her torso. Admittedly, she was a little curled in on herself. Emma made a point of stretching her legs away from her body as he turned his attention back toward the road, ignoring his chuckle. She wasn't tired. She wouldn't let herself be tired, not when they were so close.

Killian picked up on it eventually, after she didn't relax back down into her former position. She felt it when he started checking on her more frequently than usual, when it wasn't just him trying to catch her with drowsy eyes.

"What makes you so eager to stay awake this time?" He asked her, tapping her knuckle with his finger. "I know you didn't want my coffee because of the taste."

"That last sign said Vermont, right?"

"It did."

"That's why." Vermont and New Hampshire separated them from Massachusetts, two slices of countryside that would take four hours to cut through, tops. They had a ways to go until Vermont, she knew that, but home didn't feel like something on the other end of a map now that they were back in the United States.

"And?" He prompted, sensing there was more.

"And I guess I just want to be up when we turn on the street and pull up to the house," she shrugged, wishing it didn't sound so strange being spoken out loud. She tried to find words to better explain herself, but Killian seemed to beat her to the punch.

"I had no idea you missed Boston so much."

He'd strung her thoughts together before she even recognized them as her own. Emma opened her mouth to say no, she'd had a good time, but she paused when she realized how true it was.

"Neither did I," she countered softly, thinking of all of the one-way trips she'd taken in her life, how she'd been alone and quiet in the back seat for every single one of them.

She was quiet a long moment, and then he pulled his hand away from hers, fingers scrabbling along the backpack behind his seat in search of the pocket. "Reach down behind my seat and grab the CD case, will you? I can't get to it ."

As often as she spent time with David and Mary Margaret, she was almost never in his car. David didn't spend much time in it, either; his squad car was his main vehicle. Half of their yearly trip Tradition was spent in the Range Rover itself, with all it's quirks and surprises, so A soft case full of unmarked, randomly colored CDs was the least surprising thing she could have dug up from under the seats.

"They're all out of order," he commented, quickly looking at her. "But there's one that's got a bit of a scratch on the left side."

She found it near the end of the case; it had a huge scratch on it's left side, one that surely had a story behind it, but she just handed it to him wordlessly, curious to hear what it would play.

"What's on this?"

"How about you play it and find out?"

Emma waited to see if he'd say more, but evidently he'd been serious. She pushed the disc into the CD drive and was immediately rewarded with the sharp snap of drums, a loud guitar and a heavy bass line. Whether on purpose or not, he'd picked something loud enough to help keep her awake, and it had her grinning all the way through the track list.

They ended up letting it play three times through before either of them realized how long it had been on. Emma switched off the volume and let the hum of the tires on the road take over. In the quiet, she realized how close they were getting, how familiar everything was becoming. They were still close to an hour ahead of the sun, but that didn't matter when she saw the empty roadside markets selling firewood and straw Salem witch-scarecrows, or the signs pointing them to the historic site of the Boston Tea Party. Had she been driving, she would have started speeding a little, but Killian's patience didn't make her antsy.

Downtown Boston was at the top of the next highway sign the car passed under. Killian had shifted over just in time for them to pass under the glow of a tall green streetlamp; it cast just enough light for her to see the weary excitement on his face. He looked bone-tired, probably ready to fall through David's front door and right onto the couch, but he didn't mention a word, not even when their hands reluctantly parted to reach for their luggage instead.

Killian locked the car manually, so the horn wouldn't honk, and they both took care in shutting their doors as quietly as possible. The click of the lock and the steadiness of the ground beneath her feet brought the realization to Emma in full force. They'd been more than halfway across the continent twenty-four hours ago, and now they were home. She gave a fond smile to the muddy grass next to the downspout off the garage wall, the uneven slates of path leading up to the house, even the creaky screen door. The house looked exactly as it had when they left, to the point where it was hard to believe she'd been gone at all.

It took a minute for Emma to realize Killian was waiting for her to open the door. Emma blushed as she dug through the front and side pockets of her backpack and hugged it to her middle once she had the key free, too lazy to sling it back across her shoulders when it had so little left to travel.

"Should we bring anything else inside?"

Killian shook his head at her whisper. "We'll get it later this morning."

"This afternoon, you mean," Emma countered, twisting the handle gingerly.

"You knew what I meant." She bumped his side with her shoulder, trying to hold on to the last of her energy, but then she noticed the light in the kitchen was on. Sure enough, as soon as she focused on listening to the inside of the house instead of the man next to her she could hear the quiet work of a spatula against a pan, and could smell something light and buttery in the air.

Emma turned her eyes to Killian's and followed his down to the couch on the other side of the room. David lay there with a blanket haphazardly tossed around his waist, arm stretched toward the remote and head tucked into his chest. He'd waited up for them, and that realization hit Emma so hard she clutched her backpack to keep from dropping it. Killian went for her hand for a moment before seeing the white knuckle grip and faltered. She missed that too, because Mary Margaret had wandered out to greet them.

"Hey, you two."

Emma whispered her fond hello, prying her fingers away from her bag one by one. She made it just in time to give Mary Margaret a hug, to marvel at the fact that she seemed totally awake.

"He tried staying up as long as he could," she explained, hugging Killian just as fondly. "The only reason I'm awake is because this kid felt like dancing around five thirty. How was the drive?"

"Long and uneventful," Killian summed up, cutting a glance to Emma over the woman's shoulder. "Shall I go and wake up the sleeping beauty?"

"You might as well. He was only down here to keep me company," she smirked, pulling back to look at them both. She was searching for something, and it seemed like she found it after only a few seconds of quiet. "Are either of you hungry?"

Emma shook her head as Killian answered no. She might have had a different answer if she wasn't so close to sleep — she'd finally allowed herself to feel tired somewhere between their exit and the driveway — but she thought a nice brunch might do the trick.

Killian moved over to David, who groaned in protest even as he realized who was shoving his shoulder. Emma and Mary Margaret shared a look at the sleepy exchange between the two men, who seemed to be postponing their greeting for a time after sunrise, but Emma cut her off before any questions could be asked.

"I'm probably going to head up, just for a few hours."

"You can sleep longer, you know."

"I know. I just don't want to miss my first day back," she yawned, ducking her head into her own shoulder. She knelt down, a subtle invitation for Mary Margaret to get back to whatever she was cooking, and only let herself peek over at the two men on the couch once she'd dug out her phone charger. Killian seemed to be teetering on the edge of letting himself sit down and waiting until David peeled himself out of his seat.

His eyes found their way over to her long before she reached the stairs, and Emma felt herself pause on the first step up toward her room. Questioning eyes and roved over hers, sleep-soft and vulnerable, but then David stood to block her view.

"Glad you're back, Emma," he mumbled, passing through to the kitchen to kiss his wife goodnight and then moving up the stairs to the right of her. "Feel free to wake me in the afternoon."

"Will do," she replied, not taking her eyes off Killian's. Had Mary Margaret not been in the kitchen, she would have come back downstairs, but things were different here. They weren't in Tradition anymore.

"Need a pillow?"

He nodded, taking the hint, and followed her up the stairs to her closet. Emma dug out a well-loved blanket and uncovered pillow and went to set them in his arms, but found him too close to take them properly. He wrapped his arms lazily around her and the bedclothes, resting his cheek against her hair, and let out a sigh so slow she thought it might have turned into a yawn.

"I'll see you when we wake up?" He asked quietly, moving back out toward the hall. Emma wasn't sure why he was asking, but she nodded anyway.

"If you're here."

He smiled, looking almost goofy from the openness of it, and then he left her to fall asleep. Emma managed it just before the sun began to rise.


	9. Chapter 9

“Would you pass me the measuring cup?”

Emma got up from her seat at the kitchen island to lunge across the counter. Mary Margaret had her hands full with the bowl of batter and her spatula, but she wiggled her fingers in the air as if to ask Emma to hand it to her cup-first. Emma gave her the handle instead, making sure her fingers curled around the grip before letting go, and lingered half-out of her seat.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help with that?”  

Mary Margaret was far enough along in her pregnancy that she could nearly balance her mixing bowl on her stomach. She’d tried it earlier, to Emma’s amusement, but had adamantly refused help every time it was offered. Emma’s words had barely left her lips before Mary Margaret shooed her back into her seat, waving the spatula just slowly enough that she didn’t send a spray of batter flying onto the cabinets. It was that kind of stubbornness that made it easy to believe it was David’s wife, not David, that she was related to.

“This is your first meal back as a guest in our house,” she said sternly, using her best teaching voice. “I’m not going to make you help me after you spent literally the last twenty-four hours of your life driving.”

“It was only twelve. Killian drove the rest.” 

Her eyes slid from Mary Margaret over to the living room, which was considerably dimmer than the kitchen. Killian was still fast asleep on the couch, resting off the time spent awake and behind the wheel, and likely would be for another hour or two. Emma had been too hungry to stay asleep past noon, no matter how her head protested. Once she’d run into her sister-in-law, her plan to grab a granola bar and sneak back upstairs for another four hours of rest was shot. Even with their muttered words and the quiet clink of wood against glass in the air, somehow he slept on, and she felt a fond sort of jealousy fill her at the thought of his nose pressed into the back of the couch cushions.

“What I wouldn’t give to be over there right now.” Emma muttered the words into her half-cup of coffee, hoping but not quite betting on the idea that they would be swallowed up by the ceramic curve hovering under her lower lip. Part of her wanted Mary Margaret to ask, but the middle of the kitchen was not the place to have that conversation. Maybe she would tell her later, when her stomach was full and the couch was empty. It was only a matter of time before she begged the details out of her, anyway.

“Nobody’s stopping you.” Mary Margaret’s optimistic suggestion sounded louder than the rest of their conversation had been, and on purpose. Emma got the distinct impression that her mind was being read, despite not having said anything specific, so she changed tack before specific questions could be asked of her.

"What’s the cake for?"

Mary Margaret looked like she had an answer to an altogether different question prepared. A tiny line of confusion formed as she frowned, but then she seemed to decide against it, and shook her thoughts away. 

"Because you're home. We didn't really celebrate New Year's properly, and you know how I am about parties." She gave Emma a smile even as she moved the bowl out of her reach. It was an extremely motherly move, one she made up for it by handing Emma the spatula once she was done scooping the batter into its pan.

"You didn’t make a cake on New Year’s because we weren’t here?" Emma asked more softly, once she’d gotten a mouthful of cake mix. It was the same box mix she always tried to make, but Mary Margaret's invariably tasted better than hers.

"David was the one who suggested we wait...which means you're going to be a good sport and pretend it's actually New Year's Eve when we throw our party on Friday."

“You say that like I didn’t plan you a surprise shower for you back in November.”

“Co-planned. With my husband who can’t keep secrets.”

“Same thing.”

Emma lingered around for another cup of coffee before quietly retrieving her bag from the living room and making her way out to her car. Mary Margaret mentioned something about waking Killian and grabbing David from his nap upstairs on her way out, but she’d made quick work on her share of the luggage in the Range Rover. Emma gave her their keys back with one last _welcome home_  hug pressed into her arms before climbing into her lonely looking yellow Bug, silently promising to tell Mary Margaret about the rest of the trip once she was more settled in. 

Maybe she was imagining things, but it felt like her car had missed her. The engine started a bit more readily than she was expecting it to, humming to life like she’d driven it yesterday instead of a week ago. She noticed a coffee cup resting in a cupholder one size too big for it and realized that her car _had_  been driven yesterday. David knew how temperamental her battery could be, and had done his best to make sure the cold didn’t send it into a tantrum. Emma caught her own fond smile reflected in the rearview mirror as she backed away from the curb, almost wishing she’d stuck around to see Killian wake up.

Almost turned out to be a bit of an understatement later on, once her clothes were in the washing machine and the rest of her things were sitting in a pile in her bedroom. Emma finished unpacking only to find that barely two hours had passed, and the quiet of her apartment was stifling. Not that it was quiet to begin with — someone upstairs had been vacuuming ever since she set her clothes in the dryer. She just felt like there should have been moreto keep her busy 

 _The first night back is always the hardest,_ she reminded herself, skimming through the mail on her counter for the third time in ten minutes. It was all junk, barely enough to hold her attention in the first place. She was too busy missing the crackle of a fireplace on the far wall and the sound of someone rustling in the kitchen around the corner, the creak of wooden stairs under her feet and, most of all, the blanket in her closet in Tradition. Their trips weren’t meant to be long — they purposely spent more time sightseeing and camping than they did in the house itself — but she always missed the cabin, no matter how good it felt to be at home. 

 She set off for the grocery store and managed to waste another hour by aimlessly wandering the aisles. Two different employees asked her if she was looking for anything in particular, and the second time it happened Emma started to wonder what she was doing with herself. Her basket had a grand total of two things in it: bread and cheese. 

Practically jogging toward the self-checkout line, Emma pulled out her phone. There wasn’t enough reception in the dairy aisle to get a call through, but she sent Mary Margaret a message asking if they felt like setting the table for three. It didn’t go through until she found herself at the automated register, but two quick replies buzzed through the pocket of her pants. 

 _Killian’s already staying for dinner_ , she’d answered quickly, _so the table’s already set for three. We’d be happy to make it four._

Emma couldn’t collect the change from the machine fast enough.

* * *

 

It felt a little ironic that her car was sitting in the same spot it had vacated earlier in the afternoon. Emma watched her breath cloud the window for a moment, working up courage to step back in the cold. The walk to David’s front door wasn’t long, but it wasn’t really the chill in the air keeping her in her seat. It was the relief she had felt just turning onto the street five minutes ago, and how it had grown once their door had come into view. She thought coming home would shake the feeling of missing her family from her bones, but she felt it just as strongly as she watched their silhouettes pass across the little window above the kitchen sink. 

Emma heard the front door thud closed and quickly looked past her reflection, eyes landing on a damp-haired Killian approaching her. He walked quickly, likely because of the same cold she was trying not to feel. “Emma,” came his muffled voice, filtering through her door. “What are you doing out here? I saw you pull up three minutes ago.”

Mild concern was mixed with amusement in his voice as he asked her, fingers pulling at her door handle until it gave way. He swung her door open and filled the air with the smell of his shaving cream, and suddenly he was right there in her space. The unidentifiable, restless ache that had lodged itself in her chest disappeared the second there was only air between them, surprising Emma enough to make her forget her response.

“It’s cold out here.”

“Yes, my point exactly. Your foot’s still on the brakes,” he said with fond exasperation, reaching to free one of her hands from the wheel. Either he hadn’t noticed her reaction or he didn’t care, because he was still smiling crookedly at her when her eyes met his again. “Afraid you’re going to roll away?”

“No.” Emma very pointedly released the brake and twisted toward him, realizing that he, like her, wasn’t dressed for the cold. He wore a shawl-neck sweater, collar pulled up high around his jaw to ward off the cold, and the effect was more than a little endearing. She pretended not to notice how much warmer his hand felt compared to hers as she shut off her engine and pressed her keys into her palm.

“Everything all right at your place?” 

"All my messes were waiting for me right where I left them.”

“What more could you ask for?” Killian said it lightly, keeping hold of her as he led her back through the door, and only reluctantly let her go once they were inside the living room again. It was Emma’s turn not to notice his reaction as she shuffled out of her boots and made a beeline for the kitchen, finding David in there this time. He was digging through the silverware drawer, apparently in search of something sharper than a butter knife.

“Oh good, you got her in here. I was starting to worry,” he muttered absentmindedly, shuffling a soup spoon and serving fork away from his fingertips. “Mind getting us some drinks out on the table?”

Just like that, it was as if she hadn’t left. She had spent just as much time in their home as she had in hers since she got back, and she’d been asleep upstairs for most of it, but David made it seem like coming to dinner had been the plan all along. 

Dinner had made the feeling all the more pronounced. She’d sunk into the same chair she always sat in, the one right across from David, and Killian had taken his usual seat at her side across from Mary Margaret, nudging her gently in the thigh while she was busy scooping the extra tomato sauce off of her plate with a huge piece of garlic bread. She’d glanced over at him with a questioning look and received a shrug back in return, along with another crooked smile. It was strange, but David interrupted her thought with a loud clearing of his throat.

“It’s nice to have both of you back here, especially since this week’s usually about the four of us together,” he began, a slow smile beginning at the corner of his lips. “And now that you _are_  here, Mary Margaret and I have a bit of news. We weren’t sure we wanted to tell anyone before the baby was born, but —”

“We picked a name!” Mary Margaret interrupted, with none of the dramatic pretense David had used. “We picked a name, and you two are the only ones who will know before the baby’s born.”

After spending the better part of four months pestering Mary Margaret for a hint and getting absolutely nothing, Emma was shocked. Her sister-in-law was famous for being terrible at secret-keeping, which had only heightened the suspense. Granny had skipped over her entirely, trying to pry it out of David instead, but the two of them were adamant. Not a single _he_  or _she_  ever slipped past their lips. Faced with the prospect of finally knowing, Emma found it in her to be patient a moment longer.

“Well?” Killian demanded, speaking her mind before she could. “Don’t make us wait all bloody evening. Are you having a girl or a boy?”

“We’re having a boy. His name is Leo Nolan.” 

The words tumbled out of Mary Margaret’s mouth into the air between them, and all of a sudden chair legs were scraping, dinner mostly forgotten on the table in front of them. Killian had gotten up to hug Mary Margaret first and rounded on David next, clapping his back and even ruffling his hair up in gleeful celebration. 

Emma’s reaction time was a little slower. She wrapped her arms around Mary Margaret’s shoulders for a moment and gave her the _congratulations_  she’d been holding onto for months, taking in the name and rolling it around in her mind. Leo. He felt more real now than he had before when she was calling him Baby Nolan, and she felt her eyes drawn down to Mary Margaret’s stomach as she processed the information. One month, and the baby would be here, an ever-present fixture in their lives. 

“Actually, that’s not all. There’s a reason we wanted to tell the both of you specifically,” David said, pulling his wife into his side and rubbing her shoulder with his hand. Mary Margaret was beaming, seemingly unable to keep her eyes on one of them for more than a second or two. “We want you both to be his godparents.”

“We know that none of our families are very large,” Mary Margaret added delicately, managing to linger on Emma with a softer smile, “so we thought we might try to make his a little bigger right off the bat.”

Her world slowed down for a moment after that. While she felt herself nodding, saying _of course_  to the elated couple in front of her, her mind was miles away. Every foster home that had pushed her out came to mind at first, but then she instantly thought of Ruth. Ruth, who had been more mother to her than anything, who made her forget she wasn’t genetically related to David more often than not. Little Leo Nolan wasn’t even born yet, and he had more people to love him than he knew.

Emma felt guilty just _thinking_  it, and managed to push the thought to the back of her mind for a little while, but not for very long. She and Killian took dish duty since they’d cooked, and the instant the kitchen was quiet she lost herself in thought again. While her hands were mechanically placing mugs back in cabinets and wiping down plates, her mind churned with jealousy. For a _baby._  

The trouble was that these weren’t exactly new thoughts plaguing her. Emma had spent more than one night wondering how things would change once he was born; it was only a matter of time before the couple’s routine needed to change. She didn’t resent them for it in the slightest — she worked _hard_  not to — but there were times when Emma stared at the growing pile of nursery items in the spare room and felt unsure of herself. It wasn’t Mary Margaret or David’s fault that she didn’t have any of this growing up. They were almost singularly the only reason she felt like she had a real, true home, but how much longer could she really call it hers the same way she did now? 

“You don’t need to scrub the design off the plates, love. They came like that.” 

Killian’s voice cut through her thoughts, breaking Emma out of her self-induced fog. She looked up from the dish she’d been assaulting and mechanically pulled her hand away, setting it down in the dish rack instead. It was already too late to convince him nothing was bothering her; two steps and he was at her side, tugging the towel from her fingers.

“You’ve been awfully quiet since our happy little dinner, Swan. Is there anything I can do?”

He’d cut to the chase, not bothering to ask whether she was all right so she could lie. Emma almost wished he was worse at reading her, but it felt a little easier to stand in the presence of someone who understood what she was feeling. The few seconds she allowed herself to look up in his eyes made it clear he understood. 

“I didn’t want to say anything to them,” she explained quietly. “It’s not my moment. It’s theirs.”

Saying it out loud helped, but not as much as she was hoping it would. Killian noticed, like he always did. He twisted to lay her dish towel on the lip of the sink and stepped close, enough that he could have wrapped his arms around her if he wanted to. Emma felt him lean in to her and paused just a moment, eyes flickering to the door before looking back up at him.

Rather than closing the distance, Killian froze. Something had changed in his eyes as they followed hers across the kitchen and back again, moving down to her arms at her sides. She hadn’t moved, but suddenly that seemed to be the problem.

“Are you all right?”

Now he _was_  bothering to ask, and Emma knew why. This was a test, one she was going to fail unless she found a way to explain what she was feeling without sounding ridiculous. 

“I’m fine,” she responded lightly, brushing him off. "It’s just been a long day.”

“No. That’s not what I’m talking about, Emma. I was just about to kiss you, and you hesitated.”

“I didn’t want them to come in here and see when neither of us has said anything.”

“Were you planning on saying anything?”

He sounded frustrated, surprising her, and Emma couldn’t help but respond in kind. It was as if she had been waiting for the opportunity, and now that she had it her body was raring to go. 

"What is there to tell?” She asked, letting just a little too much truth slip out in her voice. She reined it in, taking a quick breath to steady herself. “We just spent a week driving across the country and barely figuring this out. I don’t know if —”

“If it’s going to last? If I’ll get bored, now the hard part’s over with? If I’ll decide it’s not even worth figuring out in the first place, perhaps?” He had backed up away from her now, giving them room to breathe despite the way the walls seemed to be closing in. Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing, even though it was coming in crystal clear. He didn’t even _sound_  mad, and that was the hardest part; his voice was soft and deliberate when he spoke to her next. “I figured out I wanted to be with you a long time ago, Swan. Before we drove a thousand miles away from home and went to Tradition. It’s not me either one of us has to worry about.”

He left her like that in the kitchen, stunned silent, and went out into the living room once again. Emma stayed long enough to make it seem as though she’d simply taken longer on her chores than him, and was gone the moment she could say goodbye to David. She made him promise to tell her she’d call later on, well aware that if Mary Margaret saw her, she’d break at once. 

Because Killian was right, wasn’t he? He wasn’t the one who hesitated. It was her.


	10. Chapter 10

A week passed. Seven days came and went, and every single one before them could have been the same, because they passed without any real notice from Emma. On the first, she left her building before the sun had fully risen over the buildings downtown, steeling herself for a week’s worth of missed work sitting on her desk. She got the avalanche she was expecting, but it didn’t keep her as busy as she wanted it to — so when the weekend came, Emma cleaned. The evidence of her effort bloomed from her bathroom outward, draping the entire apartment in the scent of bottled summer.

By the time the thin afternoon sun made its way through the windows, though, she was running out of things to keep herself busy. Her bills were paid. Her laundry was folded, put away in drawers that were just as organized. Emma was standing in front of the refrigerator, rearranging the photos and magnets and lists that covered the entire surface of the freezer door, when she realized what she was doing. She wasn’t rearranging photos at all, at least not anymore. She was staring at one in her hands, the newest addition to the fridge.

The newest Star Wars movie had opened just a few short weeks before their trip to Tradition. Double shifts caused a bit of a problem for Killian and David when the midnight premiere came around — especially when tickets sold out before Emma could get home and buy tickets — but Sunday morning had been just as fun. They took the costumes meant for opening night and wore them without shame to the first matinee showing of the day, prepared to blend into the crowd. What they hadn’t prepared for, however, was a six-year-old Kylo Ren to bat her lightsaber into the side of Killian’s shins.

“What in the — _ah,_ ” he’d said knowingly, drawing their group’s attention as he twisted around to see what was going on. He’d come dressed as Han Solo, and even his most charming smile hadn’t deterred the girl’s frown.

“Where’s your gun?” the girl hissed, trying her best to deepen her voice.

Killian had given her a cautious look, and pretended to search the pockets of his best. “I forgot to bring it. Must’ve left it in the Falcon.”

She moved her plastic saber toward his shin again, more cautiously now that she saw multiple sets of eyes on her. The line had inched forward a little, but Killian had stayed where he was, as if one wrong move would get him run through with the toy, and proceeded to talk to the little girl as if he really was Han Solo. She tried her best to stay in character, but within a minute she was giggling and asking him how many times he had seen the movies. Mary Margaret had been all too eager to include the girl in their group photo, and she’d exploded into giggles when Killian pretended to die of a stab wound to the ribs. 

It became a physical photo instead of a digital copy when Mary Margaret made good on her threatening promise to _bring a little life_ into Emma’s apartment. Her fridge had been covered in takeout menus and notes-to-self before she barged in one day carrying a pharmacy bag full of photo packets. 

“If I only brought over the ones you were actually _in,_  I wouldn’t have needed a bag,” she’d said accusingly, dumping everything on the countertop. Three piles — yes, maybe and _definitely not_  — were combed through until only four or five remained, and at that point the day was more about storytelling than it was photo-choosing.

“You know, I was pregnant in this one,” Mary Margaret had pointed out, beaming as she swiveled a group photo from Oktoberfest to Emma’s side of the counter. “Not enough to know, but I counted backwards from my first appointment and the math added up.”

“So that pumpkin-flavored beer didn’t get you sick?” Emma’d asked slyly, sliding the photo into the maybe pile.

“I don’t think it _helped_.”

Emma remembered falling asleep with a smile on her face that night, long after Mary Margaret left her with photos to scatter around the apartment (including their group photo from the movie theater) and a promise to bring back frames. Not having a stable family home to grow up in meant not having family photos to sift through and reminisce on, so that night had been a first for her. 

She hadn’t known then about the power a photo could hold, but now? Now she was staring at their group photo from that morning in the theater, unable to look at anything but the way her eyes trailed to Killian as he pretended to howl in pain and clutch at his side. Now she was standing, tracing her thumb across her printed face as if she could change the expression on it to something less obvious. 

She couldn’t, so she shoved it beneath the largest magnet she had on the side of the fridge. One reminder down, she thought to herself, turning to look at her apartment. Too many to go.

* * *

 

Emma’s next mistake came early Sunday morning. Muted grey light was filtering through her blinds as she rolled across her sheets, coaxing her arm out across the panes of light to reach for her phone. What first sounded like her alarm now proved to be her ringtone — she flicked the screen to answer the call without thinking, pressing her phone to her ear.

“Emma?”

She blinked awake in a second. After avoiding phone calls and sending hastily written texts all week, the absolute _last_  thing she’d been meaning to do was let Mary Margaret get a hold of her. 

She tried hard to sound like she had been meaning to call her all week. “Mary Margaret, hey. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Emma.”

Mary Margaret’s voice had never been so careful, at least not directed at her. She sounded different without the bright, bubbling warmth radiating from her words. It was earlier than she usually called, which was a little alarming Emma. The first, terrible thought to go through her mind was that the baby had come early and she’d missed it, but that cautious tone on the other line interrupted the thought.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No, I was — well, yeah, but it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“Should I, though? Be worried?”

Emma bit the inside of her cheek, straining for an answer that wouldn’t incriminate her. The longer she was on the phone, the more chance she had of breaking down, and that was _not_ part of her plan for the last day of her weekend. She opened her mouth to say that she was sorry, she would call her back to talk at length when she didn’t have as much work on her plate — the first excuse she could come up with on the spot — but the words faded on her tongue. Mary Margaret deserved more than an outright lie.

“No. You haven’t done a thing.”

“Are you sure? Because the last thing I remember saying to you was that I wanted you to be part of my baby’s family, and I haven’t heard from you since.” She took a deep breath, a sure sign that she was gearing up for a long speech, and Emma sank back against her pillow to stare at a patch of light on the ceiling. 

“When I told David that I wanted it to be you and Killian, he told me how you might react. We waited so long to ask because it was a secret, yeah, but there were other reasons, Emma. I wanted to make sure you didn’t feel like we were replacing you in our lives. I even wrote it down on a little notecard; it’s in my baby book. I had no idea it even bothered you until you missed dinner here the other night.”

Emma tried to grasp it; the image of Mary Margaret delicately sliding an index card between that month’s pregnancy diary entry and a paint swatch from the soon-to-be nursery. She suddenly remembered a promise she’d made to help them put the crib together when she got back from her trip, and the memory sank like a stone to the bottom of her stomach.

“I’m sorry about the radio silence,” Emma responded lamely, aware that it wasn’t enough. “I never meant for you and David to worry about me over that.”

“Then what’s going on, Emma? You’ve never tried to keep us out of the loop when something’s going on with you. Not when it’s something serious.”

Emma thought the wariness in Mary Margaret’s voice had been hard to hear, but the pain was awful. She could tell she was holding back, too, trying not to make things worse or push her away. Emma couldn’t blame her; she’d jumped at every chance to keep them all at arm’s length from the moment she left their doorstep a week ago, and Mary Margaret had no reason to believe anything had changed.

“Killian didn’t say anything?”

“He talked to David earlier. I want to hear it from you.”

“I kissed Killian the night I went through the ice. We started to be…something after that.”

“And?” There was no excited glint in her voice, no impatient anticipation. Emma hadn’t expected any, even if she hadn’t heard a word of what David and Killian had talked about.

“And if I let that something exist, I could potentially screw up your whole family.”

“ _Our_ whole family,” Mary Margaret argued, frustration seeping into every word. She didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t disagreed with Emma. “You say it like you can’t have both, Emma. What in the world made you think you couldn’t have both?”

“I don’t know if I can handle both. Not without someone getting hurt.” Emma said it quietly, knees drawn to her chest and hair falling in curtains in front of her eyes. She felt like she was shouting the words, like they were echoing out across her apartment and out into the hallway, out into the world where everyone would know. She already worried that it showed on her face; speaking it out loud was worse.

“That might be true,” Mary Margaret allowed, her voice a little softer than before. “But trying to keep the pain all to yourself isn’t working either. You deserve to give yourself more credit than that…and besides, we miss you.”

“It’s only been a week,” she frowned, a little confused at the mention.

“You’d be surprised at what a difference a week can make, Emma.” She paused, and Emma could picture her shaking her head to herself. “We’re always going to want you in our lives, no matter who else comes into the picture.”

“You don’t think I screwed all of this up?”

“II wasn’t just talking about myself before.”

* * *

 

There was no going back to sleep after a phone call like that. Emma pulled herself out of bed and showered until the water ran cold, all the while thinking over what Mary Margaret had told her. She still felt guilty, more so than she had before when she’d been jealous over a baby that had yet to be born.

Thoughts of things she should have said kept streaming through her mind, now that she was off the phone. She should have made it clear how excited she was to be a part of everything involving the baby, no matter what was wrong with her own past. She made it so easy for herself to fall back into the same old doubts, even when her brother and his wife had spent years and years convincing her otherwise. That needed apologizing for, too.

The hardest apology, though, was the one she needed to give to herself. Mary Margaret was more right about that than anything else; she’d been happier, more sure of who she was for the few days that she let herself feel something fully for Killian.

He wasn’t just their passenger, a fourth person to take up space at the table and keep Emma from feeling like a third wheel. He was the deputy that pulled double shifts just to make sure David wasn’t out on the road by himself. He was the friend who ambled patiently through the aisles of IKEA and Target with Mary Margaret until she found the baby furniture she wanted, and loaded it into the back of David’s pickup truck without complaint. He was the man who traveled more than a thousand miles away from home with her without question, the man who didn’t judge her for her past when it came up, the man who pulled her from the ice and warmed her. And that was just the trip — Emma could think of a thousand things that made him more than worthy enough to be the person she took a chance on.

The truth was she was scared of having so much to lose, and he was right below David and Mary Margaret on her list of things that were truly hers. Emma shut off the shower water and wrung out her hair, letting a cloud of steam out of the shower as soon as she stepped onto the tile. He would probably answer a call from her if she tried it, but she could already feel it wouldn’t be enough. If she deserved more than she gave herself, then Killian deserved at least five times that.

She moved throughout her apartment with wet hair falling over her shoulder, ignoring the chill it gave her. She wasn’t in the mood to be bothered by the cold when there was so much running through her mind. Would Killian be up this early? The drive had wiped both of them out, but he was never one to let himself sleep in just because he was tired. No, she knew he’d be up and doing something productive with himself, the exact opposite of her right now.

Emma made herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, staring out into her living room. She wished she hadn’t cleaned the apartment so thoroughly the day before; her hands were itching for something to do, her mind craving the distraction that work brought.

She tried closing her eyes and picturing herself back at Tradition once the smell of coffee started filling the air, calling to mind every detail she could. Emma imagined the ceiling yawning high above her, the walls stretching and painting themselves a warm red. She reached out her arm, holding it just in front of the carafe, and tried to picture flames licking the walls of the stone fireplace instead. All of it came together except — except it was empty. She had never been to Tradition alone, and it felt wrong imagining it. Emma opened her eyes and realized it was more than that. She didn’t _want_ to imagine it with nobody filling the seats on the couch, nobody rummaging through the cabinets in the kitchen, nobody tugging playfully at the corner of the blanket she kept for herself. There was no point in daydreaming about a place she loved without the people she loved in it, just like there was no point in going alone.

There was no fooling herself anymore. The moment she finished her coffee she was in a pair of running shoes and out the door. Her thoughts came more quickly when she was moving, and by the time she circled the neighborhood she had a better idea of what to do with herself than before. The chilly air woke her up in ways the coffee hadn’t. She ran up the stairs of her building and stopped back inside to grab her car keys, and then she was out the door again, determined to make up for at least a few of the seven days she’d spent on her own.

* * *

 

Emma arrived at Mary Margaret and David’s later than expected. She’d forgotten about the morning rush hour in her rush to come and talk to them, but for once in her life she hadn’t minded navigating the traffic. It gave her something physical to worry about, even if it was just for a few minutes, and by the time she turned onto their quiet side street she’d worked through most of her nerves.

Emma took her time walking up to the door, She kept shifting her weight from one foot to the other, rocking up onto the toes of her sneakers and back again while she waited for somebody to answer. She knew where they kept their spare key, and had one of her own swinging from the carabiner that held her own, but she was trying to make a point to whoever came to the door that she was asking forgiveness on purpose.

Mary Margaret answered the door, pregnant stomach visible before her face was. The hand not resting on the doorknob was holding a phone to her ear, but she lifted it away the second she saw that it was Emma waiting on the edge of her doorstep. “Dr. Whale? Can I interrupt you for a second?” Emma held up a hand to say it was okay, but Mary Margaret gave her an insistent nod. “I’ve got company at my door. I’ll call you back tomorrow morning.”

Her phone wasn’t in her pocket for a second before she stepped outside and wrapped her arms around Emma as tight as she could, pressing her cheek to hers.

“It’s too cold out here for pregnant people,” Emma pointed out, hugging her back.

“I don’t care if it’s a little chilly out. I thought it was going to take you a lot longer to show up here,” Mary Margaret told her, although she did take a tiny step back through the threshold. “David just left to go to the store, if you want me to try and call him back —“

“It’s okay. I think you’re the one I’m supposed to apologize to first…along with this guy,” Emma said, nodding down to Mary Margaret’s stomach. “Can I come in?”

“Of course you can.” She stepped aside and led the way out of the cold, heading right for the kitchen. Emma shut the door behind her and realized she hadn’t eaten anything, but Mary Margaret seemed to be one thought ahead of her in everything today. “Have you eaten yet, or did you run right over here?”

The joke lifted ten pounds off of Emma’s shoulders. She shook her head, taking the first step of many in terms of her own honesty. “I had a cup of coffee, but nothing solid.”

“Well we’ve got plenty here,” Mary Margaret told her with a small smile. “Grab something so we can go sit and talk. My feet have been killing me lately.”

Emma did as she was told, reaching into the cabinets for a bowl of cereal. She ate it dry, intent on wasting as little of Mary Margaret’s time as possible, as well as her own. Every minute that passed made it harder to keep a firm grip on her courage, and she needed every drop she’d summoned on her run.

“I’m sorry I made you have that conversation on the phone,” Mary Margaret started, settling down into her seat. “I didn’t say a word of it to David.”

“It would have been okay if you did. I probably need to stick around and wait for him to come back,” she offered, already soaking in the comfort that was their home. She didn’t even live here, but a huge chunk of her heart had made a home here from the moment she moved in. This was _her_ side of the couch she was sitting on, and she was drinking out of _her_ mug. Mary Margaret was the kind of person she was sure she would have rented an apartment with, had she known her before David, and she thought about it now as she curled her feet against the side of the couch.

“You know him. He wanders every aisle.” Mary Margaret smiled fondly at her, and waited quietly after that. Emma knew she was giving her the floor, so to speak, but it still took her a moment to gather her thoughts.

Breathing deep, she raised her eyes to meet and lock onto Mary Margaret’s. She opened her mouth to say all the practiced words she’d come up with on her run, but all of it fell away as soon as she tried to speak.

“I’m sorry,” she said instead, starting simple. “You and David and Killian have more than made up for all of the awful stuff I lived through in my past, but you’ve never gone through anything big with me before.”

“Doesn’t mean we don’t want to, though,” Mary Margaret reminded her, smiling a little more. “Especially since we’re family.”

She appreciated hearing it, and would have taken it in writing to hang over her bed if she could, but Emma pressed on. “As far as Killian goes…you’re kind of my only girl friend. If I told you —”

“Then it’d be real. I know you better than you give me credit for, you know. And so does he,” she said pointedly, cutting off the thought that just crept into Emma’s mind. The two of them were her family, but he was a different kind. His forgiveness felt more important, just like it felt harder to earn.

“You sure about that?”

Mary Margaret reached forward, covering Emma’s hand with her own. “If I was, I’d have to be completely wrong about him, too…and I’m about to be a mom. That means I’m always going to be right from now on.”

Emma smiled and let her shoulder sink into the plush back of the couch, intent on staying a while and making good on her comment about David. “You better be.”


	11. Chapter 11

Emma clutched the worn steering wheel with her hands, flexing her fingers and curling them around the faded material over and over again. It wasn't helping her warm up in the slightest - she should have left the car on for that - but it was impossible to sit completely still as she stared at the vehicle parked across the street from her own.

Killian's car sat in the same exact spot it always was. Two spots to the left of the door, backed in, almost perfectly aligned between the two painted lines on either side of him. She didn't know if it was because his neighbors knew he was a deputy or if he just had impeccable timing, but whenever she came over here she always saw him in the same spot.

Her knack for timing wasn't so lucky; she was parallel parked between a brown Ford pickup and a Jeep Wagoneer. It was a tight squeeze, and she probably could have found a closer spot if she'd pulled into his parking lot, but it was a lot easier eight-point-turning her way into this spot than it was gaining the courage to on his door at the moment.

She'd stayed longer than she intended to with Mary Margaret. It hadn't been a bad thing. Their conversation turned toward the baby, to details concerning the new life that was soon to come into their world. His nursery was set up completely now; in her absence, David had put together the last of the furniture he and his wife had picked out together, the same furniture she'd helped Killian bring in the house and set aside in the guest room when David was on duty at the station. Little additions like family pictures had been making their way up to the room recently, making it feel more complete than a matching set of bedsheets and curtains ever could have. A picture of Emma, Mary Margaret and David on their wedding day sat in a place of honor on the bookshelf near the rocking chair, larger than any of the others that hung on the wall above the crib. She would have been lying if she said it looked anything less than perfect, like it did't want to make her stay with them until they left for the hospital and came back with little Leo himself.

David getting home had delayed her - his arrival wasn't as unexpected as the fierceness with which he reiterated Mary Margaret's promises to her and encouraged her to follow his wife's advice - but not by much.

She shoved the door open, fed up with her own nervous energy, and dove away every thought except the one that had branded itself into her mind since she'd left Mary Margaret's. Maybe it had been a good thing, Emma thought to herself, passing between Killian's car and the silver one parked beside it. If she'd left earlier, she might have beaten him here.

Emma didn't know what he would have done if he'd come home to her standing on his porch.A morbid kind of curiosity had her picturing it vividly in the space between her car door and his front steps, but the street separating her from his door wasn't wide enough to entertain every possibility

Se let the brass anchor knocker fall heavy on his front door and stared right at it after it fell back into place, her breath fogging the air while she waited for the sound of footsteps. When was the last time she had even knocked, let alone waited for him to let her in? She knew he kept his spare key in a magnetic box under his porch lantern, just like he knew she kept herself behind the downspout on the side of her building. Hell, she remembered asking him and David for advice on where to hide her spare when she first had it made - they'd gone back and forth several minutes bickering about which spots a thief would chef first. It felt wrong to knock, just like it felt wrong to go more than a week without speaking to him. She hoped he'd let her try to make up for both.

All at once the doorknob turned, tearing a hole in the quiet of the street behind her. Emma steeled herself to find a dozen different expressions on Killian's face when he saw her, curling her fingers so her short nails bit into her palm, and watched the door swing inward.

His face was completely blank — the one thing she hadn't prepared for. Eyes that normally shone when they landed on hers showed no change when he came into view. Either he knew it was her when she'd knocked, or...Emma didn't want to consider the alternative. She was too busy trying to get a read on him, on how much time she had before he shut the door on her again.

"I went to Mary Margaret and David's before coming here," she blurted out. It wasn't at all what she'd planned to say, but she felt like she had to convince him she was serious.

"That's good. They've missed you."

The finality in his voice stung, but she fought past it. She was the one who'd put it there. She stood her ground in front of him and put a little more fire into her gaze. It didn't matter if his didn't change, even when she leaned her weight forward and tried again.

"I didn't just go over there, Killian. I talked to them for a while. There's stuff I dealt with growing up, stuff I didn't realize still affected me. I know it sounds stupid to you, but I thought that trip to Tradition was going to be my last chance to spend time with them the way I'm used to spending it." Emma curled her arms around herself, trying very hard to look like she wasn't cold. Killian had to be, standing there in fewer layers than she was, but he hadn't moved an inch. His expression hadn't changed, but his eyes hadn't moved from her yet, either. She tried one more time, hoping that some part of what she was saying was getting through to him — that he was still making the effort to understand her when she couldn't make it easy.

"You know the kinds of families I grew up with before David and his mom found me.

Finally, he moved. She flinched when she saw his hand move at the doorknob, thinking he planned to shut her out now that she'd made three different attempts at explaining herself, but he only moved to pull the door wider. "It's cold out," he said quietly, stepping aside. "We should talk inside."

Emma dropped her hands the moment he stepped around the corner from the kitchen, watching every move he made. He'd offered her water when she stepped in, probably to give himself a minute to prepare, and she couldn't blame him for it. Had it been her place, she would have done the same.

She watched for some kind of change in his expression, some clue to let her know what he was thinking, but he'd clearly used his minute alone to his advantage. Killian was steeling himself, keeping his eyes down somewhere near his wrist until he was sure she had a secure grip on the cup. After that his eyes fell away to some indiscriminate spot on the floor, like he needed to make sure his footing was steady. It made her miss the man who teasingly sauntered into her space and purposely found ways to be around her, who played with her personal space and held her gaze far longer than any friend should. Emma had no idea how to deal with a Killian who raised his walls around her, who invited her into his home but wouldn't look at her.

So she waited. Emma didn't say a word to him, didn't so much as take a sip of her water until he looked up at her, and when he finally did, she held his gaze and made a point of showing him everything she had been feeling for the past week. Killian had a front-row seat to every single ounce of worry and insecurity and doubt that she'd been carrying around with her. She let him see the girl who thought she'd failed every family to ever attempt to take her in, and the teen who had taken weeks to start trusting the family that finally had. She let him see the guarded woman who had tried to keep him at arm's length the first few times she met him, who failed miserably after seeing all that he did for her family. And she let him see longing, too, not just for the friend he turned out to be but for the man who always stayed by her side and in her corner. He was searching her eyes without yielding now, and she gave him plenty of time to try to find what he was looking for before she started to speak.

"I know I'm bad at talking to you, and you're probably tired of giving me chances to talk, but that's all I'm asking you do to for a couple minutes. You don't have to do anything but listen to me, and if you want me to leave after that, I'll just…see you later." She looked at him, well aware that he didn't owe her this, and forced herself to start.

"Did David ever tell you that I ran away from home?"

That got his attention, but Emma wasn't using the story for shock value. It didn't matter if he'd heard the story or not — and she guessed he hadn't, judging by his surprise — as long as he understood that she wasn't playing the orphan card. "I'd been there a couple of months. Nothing happened to me, David and his mom were great. They were great, and I was me, and…" she took a breath, only giving herself a second before continuing on. "I stole money out of Ruth's purse to pay for gas, grabbed the keys to my car and snuck out. My plan was to sleep in my car and look for work."

Emma's eyes fell to the ground, unable to continue on while she was looking at him. At least he's still listening, she reminded herself. Reassuring as it was, it reminded her that she was wasting time.

"I didn't want to wait around and watch things get bad like they did with everyone else. I was selfish. I'm still selfish, Killian, and I'm trying to fix that…but I can't be that person around a baby. Or you. Both of you deserve a lot more than that from me. It's a week too late, but I'm sorry I avoided you when I should have explained it instead." She ran an agitated hand through her hair, trying hard not to fumble over the words.

"You weren't the only one to feel something before we went on that trip. I said I didn't know if it would last because I'm not good at making things last, and it wasn't worth hurting both of us if I couldn't handle it. It took me way too long to realize I still did."

Killian was quiet for a little while, and part of Emma wished she'd made him promise to speak once she was done. She hadn't realized how much she'd needed to say to him until the words were falling out of her mouth, and how jarring the silence would be in the aftermath. He wasn't usually quiet when he was angry, but nothing about this was exactly typical for either of them. Her eyes met his again, and Emma realized that he'd been waiting for her this time.

"Is this the last time we're going to do this?" He asked her, a trace of wariness still lingering in his voice. "Or are we going to keep having this conversation at every obstacle we meet? I wish I could figure out how to skip ahead to the part where you trust me when things get bad, Emma, because I hate waiting for you to come back on your own."

Emma's heartbeat picked up, despite the furrow in his brow and the harsh truth in his words. She'd expected worse from him, given how terrible she felt, but she let his words sink into her without issue. He hadn't said anything to make her feel hopeful yet, but every second he stayed within reach gave her a little more hope. His posture did it, too; he seemed to be fighting the urge to move closer, waiting to see what she'd do before he put himself out on the line again.

"I went to Mary Margaret and David's before coming here," she repeated, pressing her hands against her side to keep herself from fidgeting under his gaze. She was likely confusing him again, but he was patient as ever. "They told me a lot of things I needed to hear, and I told them a lot of things I'd been keeping to myself. Whatever changes after this, they know I'm not going to try and deal with it on my own."

He took a step closer to her, letting out a frustrated sigh, and just managed to stop his hand in midair before it could reach out for her. "I'm not going to change if we start seeing each other…and I don't expect you to, either. If I wanted someone else, I'd be going after her."

Emma's eyes widened, feet stepping closer to him without care for the invisible barrier that separated them before. It was his move she was using on him, but that didn't matter while his words echoed around in her mind. "I'm still trying to work on letting people in. If I get stuck in my own head again…"

"You just have to let me in there with you," he shrugged, letting a ghost of a smile come over his face. She didn't see his arm move, but his hand caught a hold of hers, fingers twining between hers and squeezing slightly. The wall between them shattered, like it had never been there in the first place; if Emma thought her heartbeat had sped up before, it was nothing in comparison to the hammering in her chest when the heel of his palm pressed against hers. "I feel I've spent a fair amount of time getting to know that stubborn, beautiful mind of yours, after all. I'm probably the best man equipped for the job."

Emma surprised herself when her vision grew misty. Maybe it was the forgiveness shining though in his voice, or the reassuring swipe of his thumb across the side of her palm, or the way he'd stepped close enough that the toes of his socked feet brushed up against her shoes, or all of it together. She'd been pushing her feelings aside for so long now that feeling them all at once was almost overwhelming by comparison, but she let it happen. Emma had promised to let him in, along with her brother and his wife. This was her first chance to practice.

"Sorry," she apologized, blinking the tears away before they could well up and fall. "It's just — I didn't think this was going to go this well."

"You thought I'd tell you I didn't want to see you again?"

"I wasn't sure you'd even open the door," she chuckled, the laugh wet in her throat. Killian reached up to cup her cheek in his hand, sliding the other out of her grip and around her side, shaking his head even as he pulled her into an embrace. Her arms went around him as his hand wound into her hair, and she shivered when she felt him press a kiss into the side of her neck.

"My door's always open for you, love," he muttered against the curve of her shoulder, pulling back to look at her with confusion etched in his brow. "Did you forget about the spare key beneath the lamp?"

Emma shook her head. "I didn't know if you'd want me using it for this visit."

"Well then," he told her softly, leaning in with intent, "perhaps we ought to get you your own key. That way you'll never have to wonder."

She didn't dive for him this time, and he didn't pull her into himself. They met each other halfway for this kiss, one that seemed to have started well before Emma's lips fell against his. Her head fell to the side as he held her tighter, hand sliding under her jacket and rubbing between her shoulder blades. It sent little thrills of warmth up her spine that had nothing to do with his apartment's heating, and she responded in kind by pressing a hand into his chest. It only made him move closer, trapping her arm between them, and she barely had time to smile before he had caught her bottom lip between the both of his.

Emma had no idea how much time passed as they made up for lost time, only that she planned on memorizing every part of him that her senses had forgotten. The scratch of his stubble under her palms came first, the sound of an appreciative groan rumbling up from the base of his throat following it. There was the rise and fall of his chest, stuttering every once in a while when her nails skimmed the base of his neck. There was the steadiness of his arms holding her near. All of it — the thickness of his hair, the fabric of his shirt, the smell of his skin — came back to her like she'd always known it this way. By the time she broke for air she could barely remember what he'd said before the kiss. She barely had time for anything but a breath before he was hauling her back into him with just as much passion as before. One thought stood out amidst the sensory overload — she was lucky to have him.

* * *

 

When Emma awoke next, it wasn't to the sight of light falling through the curtains. It was to a piece of her own hair fluttering across her nose, tickling her awake when everything else was quiet and dark. She frowned, wondering what breeze could possibly be drafting into the room, and blinked awake to the dim outline of Killian instead, lying sound asleep only inches away from her. His mouth had fallen open in his sleep; it was his soft breath sending her hair flying. She was loath to do a single thing to wake him when his arm was curled so securely around her waist and his hand was pressed warmly against her spine, so she just ducked her head to rest below his chin. Emma pushed into him, shoving his knees apart so her leg could fit between, and pressed a little kiss at the collar of his shirt.

The night continued on in perfect quiet while Emma tried to fall back asleep, which was more than fine as far as she was concerned. It didn't occur to her that there might have been another reason she'd woken up — not until the sound of asphalt being scraped made its way to her ears. Emma opened her eyes and found Killian peering at her, gauging her reaction to the unmistakable sound of a snow plow cleaning the street.

"I guess it must have snowed a little."

"It must have," Killian answered softly, his voice and accent thick from a half-night of sleep. "Do you want to go to the window and have a look?"

"Not really." That earned her a chuckle, one she reciprocated until she felt him pulling the both of them out of their blankets. Emma protested halfheartedly as he tugged her out of bed and over to the window and pressed her cheek against his chest as he moved the curtains aside. Sure enough, a blanket of crisp white snow had fallen across the neighborhood, high enough to partially submerge the wheels of her car. A messy pile of salt-and-pepper slush decorated what little bit of her bumper she could see; it was clear that the plows had done a decent job of trapping her in until the sun rose.

The moon's out," Killian commented, rubbing his hands up and down her back. "We've got a good view of it from right here."

"You better go get the blanket, then," she told him softly, staring up at the moon where it peeked out from behind silver-blue clouds. "You're warm, but you're not that warm."

Killian looked back at her with a crooked smile, and Emma could swear the moonlight still shone in his eyes, even with his back turned to the window. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips, sweet as it was short, and obliged, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders before sneaking his arms around her middle.

"Better?"

She let her head fall back against its chest where it had been before, staring up at the night sky. "It's a start."


End file.
